Removing Poison Oak Naturally – No Herbicides
We have lived on our 1.1 acre property for almost fives years now and all the while have been battling a small patch of poison oak just outside our bedroom window. Thankfully, it wasn’t more than about a twenty by ten foot area but the close proximity to our house just made it that much more unsettling. To make matters worse, there is a large boulder that the poison oak loves to grow at the base of – which our kids love to try and climb.
Living with poison oak for almost five years…
My youngest was only four years old when we first moved in so you can imagine the fun times that was keeping him out of the area. My oder son was just becoming a tween and starting to have numerous friends over who would also love climbing that dang boulder so you can see how my mama heart has had enough over the years.
Pacific poison oak is native to our lands here in SoCal and thrives in our canyons and along our hiking trails. We have had several encounters with it having all grown up here. Once you realize what it is you never want to make the mistake of exposing yourself to it again. I’m still not recovered from the time we let our dog off leash on a hike who then decided to run through a patch of it and spread it to everyone in the car.
By some miracle (or my mama bear diligence) no one in our family have suffered a poison oak rash to date from our property. That is true feat considering we also have three barn cats who I have seen chasing vermin into the thicket and then try to sneak into the house to sleep on someone’s bed.
We hired a landscaping company to get us started…
I was surprised when I started calling landscape companies to ask them if they would come out and remove it that many would not. I finally found a more local company to our rural neighborhood who said they would. To my surprise two guys showed up and started digging it out by hand. They said they both grew up around it and were immune. We had them come out two or three more times to clear out the poison oak and try and get out as much of the roots as they could.
One of the landscapers had said that he found the mother plant and thought he dug it all out. The problem with poison oak is that it spreads through its roots or rhizomes and any small piece of a root left behind can sprout up a new plant. They encouraged me to spray roundup or herbicide on any new sprouts we saw popping up.
Spraying roundup was out of the question…
The thing about roundup is that it causes cancer, and I beat cancer in 2024 and plan to stay healthy the rest of my life. So spraying poison is out. Like over my dead body would I ever spray poison anywhere on my property. Monsanto was sued by a couple who both got cancer from being heavy roundup users (as well as their dog) and won.
We were stuck in this cycle of hiring people to come out once a year or so and it was starting to get frustrating seeing so much poison oak pop back up again shortly after (not to mention expensive.) So I decided to to try something kind of radical and move our entire flock of backyard chickens into the area.
Utilizing our chickens was an absolute game changer…
A lot of people use goats to help mitigate overgrown brush including poison oak – but this requires goat proof fencing which we did not have. So when I had recently discovered some non-electrified poultry fencing by Premier1, I decided to give it a try. We had our chickens in that area for about five months and they did not disappoint. Any shoot of green that tried to sprout up was quickly scratched away and eaten.
My biggest fear during this experiment was that collecting eggs would expose me to the urushiol oils, but it was somehow never an issue. I think because the chickens ate the poison oak leaves there was just no trace of the oils left behind. By the way, chickens can safely eat and digest poison oak without any problems.
I was excited when the day finally came to move our flock back to their more secure fenced run. Their biggest predator threat is loose neighborhood dogs and the poultry netting just doesn’t protect them enough. After a couple weeks we did start to see some tiny poison oak leaves poop up here and there but I was ready.
I found a natural weed spray that actually worked…
I found an alternative to roundup that actually works just as well. Another YouTube gardening channel I follow mentioned she used this natural weed killer for the stubborn crabgrass around her garden towers and I never forgot it. When I started spraying those new shoots it did not disappoint!
Looking back it was really a one-two-three punch that had us win the battle over the poison oak on our property. I still go out every ten days or so to check for new sprouts but it takes literally seconds to scan the completely cleared and barren area (thanks to the chickens.) I spray a couple places and go on my way. I have tried a couple other natural weed sprays but none compare to this one. I can’t recommend it enough.
