I keep seeing this on my way to and from church but have never gotten a picture, so yesterday I got my camera out and snapped a picture while I drove past.
A few blocks down from my church, there is a GIANT poison ivy plant growing on a light post. I wonder if people just don't know what it is, or if no one wants to take the time (and risk) to kill it, or if they leave it there as a practical joke on passers-by. I think it's the single largest urban specimen I have seen. And it's right at a crosswalk. In fact, the button to trigger the crosswalk is on the lower left-hand corner of the gray box in the picture below.
As a person who could get poison ivy by just looking at this picture, it gives me the jibblies. I have read that Victorian gardeners used to cultivate poison ivy for its beautiful red fall foliage. They just told children not to touch it. I can't imagine growing this on purpose. I can't even imagine having this grow in front of my house without pouring weed killer and gasoline all over it. Yikes!
In the picture below, the poison ivy is growing on the pole that holds the “Speed Limit 25” sign. All the plant material you see on that pole is poison ivy.
Scary, huh?
WHAT!?!?! Do the people who live in that house know?? DOes the city know?? Wait – of course they do. They just don’t care.
I think you should put a big “Do Not Touch This Plant!” sign up next to the plant. That ought to keep any passersby from mistakenly touching it.
Why is it that no one has killed it? I mean, really, why?
Eeeeew! Eeeeek!
Can’t you just get a cup of gasoline and throw it out the window every time you pass by? 5-6 applications should work.
“You’re gonna need an ocean,
Of …. take it away someone….
and thanks for putting that song in my head!
???
Ah, you veritable spring chicken you – consider us oldsters with knowledge of the songs of the 50’s…..
Geesh, now I can’t get that tune outta my head either – thanks, Peggy!
“Poi-zun-eeeyyyeee-eye-eye-eye-veee; Poi-oi-zuh-un-eeeyyyeee-eye-eye-eye-eye-vee!”
–typed by one who has had her own brand of same growing in her backyard as long as she’s had her grandfather’s fig bush-wild rose-honeysuckle-scrub tree combo. A new spring without an outcrop of itchy redness is just wrong somehow.
You’re gonna need an ocean..na,
Of Calamine lotion..na!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDldNjabgpM
(To Lloyd: 1:55 sec.)
(To Lauren)
oops….
http://s3.amazonaws.com/trd_three/images/26932/sting_articlebox.jpg
*sigh*
Maybe it’s to detour visitors from coming to your town. I have never see poison ivy before because I live in northern CA and we have poison oak. With my luck I would think it was a beautiful display of local botany and want to feel how soft and nice the leaves were.
Then … you’re gonna need an ocean..na,
Of Calamine lotion..na!