OAK PARK, Ill. — Praising the specimen’s vigorous early-season growth and distinctively serrated three-leaf structure, local resident Greg Millard reportedly spent his Saturday morning carefully fertilizing and erecting a custom cedar trellis for a flourishing patch of poison ivy.
Millard, 34, who began his foray into urban agriculture three weeks ago after purchasing a galvanized steel raised bed, told neighbors he was exceptionally proud of how the "Black Krim heirloom" was adapting to the local microclimate. Witnesses confirmed Millard spent over an hour gently securing the highly allergenic, urushiol-secreting stems to the wooden framework with soft garden twine, occasionally pausing to wipe sweat from his eyelids and mouth with his bare, sap-covered hands.
According to adjacent property owners, Millard has dedicated the majority of his weekend to optimizing the soil pH for the toxic vine, completely clearing the surrounding bed of actual tomato seedlings which he misidentified as invasive bindweed. The amateur horticulturalist also reportedly set up a precise drip irrigation system to ensure the hazardous creeping perennial receives exactly one inch of filtered water per week.
He specifically requested an organic kelp emulsion to encourage aggressive lateral branching, which is certainly going to maximize the surface area of the rash he is about to develop.
Millard has documented the entire cultivation process on a neighborhood Facebook group, uploading daily macro photographs of the plant's reddish aerial roots. When several veteran gardeners attempted to intervene in the comment section to warn him about the oily, blistering resin visibly coating the leaves, Millard reportedly muted the thread, dismissing them as "Monsanto apologists" who simply did not understand the rugged morphology of ungrafted pre-industrial nightshades.
At press time, a noticeably inflamed Millard had relocated his canvas patio chair directly beneath the trellis to enjoy the shade, remarking to his wife that he planned to heavily mulch the root zone to protect his prized crop through the coming winter.