When I wrote last week about my brush with poison ivy I had no idea it would generate more reader mail than any other column I’ve written over the past seven years. Thank you so much for your concern, kind thoughts and remedies. They are much appreciated.

Poison ivy, botanically known as Toxicodendron radicans, contains a lacquerlike resin in its sap, which upon contact with the skin causes a red, itching rash on most people. Contact and subsequent contamination may be made by brushing against the leaves or bare stems. It can also occur through contact with an animal or with clothing that has touched the plant.

Interestingly enough, I learned from several readers (and also read in several reference books) that smoke from burning poison ivy plants may carry the resin and affect all exposed parts of the body. One reader mentioned that he’d spent time in the hospital being treated for poison ivy after helping burn fields one spring.

As for remedies, one reader wrote, “I tried homeopathic remedies and minimized the itching and the spreading within two days. Usually I take a spring preventative of the remedy Rhus Tox, a few pills a day (or, say, three times a week) for a few weeks in late spring, but this year I forgot. So with my fingers swelling and my arms itching, I tried it as a curative – and it seems to have worked.”

Another reader offered, “In your search for comfort, I hope you found reference to jewelweed, a local antidote, whose flower rivals most domesticated plants for its beauty and amazing seed-spitting ability, if not size. Anyway, I would mash stems and leaves and apply as a poultice. The cure was so well received in my home that we froze cubes of the juice for times the plant was not available.”

Indeed, I had heard of the jewelweed antidote, but I forgot to mention it last week. It is a tidbit worthy of remembering. The ice cube idea is an excellent one, too. I ran out and bought a bar of Fels Naptha to have on hand after reading that it has the ability to wash away the resins that cause the poison ivy rash, if used within 10 minutes of exposure. I do think I’ll freeze some jewelweed juice as a backup.

Plants that heal should be kept on hand. I do have the obligatory aloe plant to apply to burns. The gelatinous sap inside the plump leaves soothes and heals burns quickly. Yet so many plants in our gardens are underutilized. Historically, of course, the garden provided a family with a pharmaceutical base from which cures were derived. Tinctures from echinacea (purple coneflower) and valerian were common among early Americans and Shakers. Echinacea was, and is, used to boost the immune system in warding off illness.

Tincture of valerian causes a relaxing or tranquil response when ingested. A powder pounded from the roots of butterflyweed, a plant valued today to lure beautiful winged insects, offered a practical cure for the ever-common pleurisy and provided a treatment for flesh wounds.

Delving into the world of healing plants can be interesting, intimidating and, well, a bit of a culture shock. I say interesting because we start to see our plants in a new light; intimidating because there are vast and dangerous implications if one misidentifies a plant; and I say culture shock because our society tends not to readily value that which is aged. We accept the general premise that what is new is best. But is that really true? For illnesses that have plagued humanity for centuries – especially non-life-threatening ones that arise from the environment in which we live – is it not better to seek cures from that same environment?

Some people believe that our body has the ability to heal itself. They believe that the body has the ability to be its own pharmacy, producing healing agents in perfect dosages, with perfect timing and release. Harnessing and directing that power may have exciting potential. And if our bodies can’t always manage the demands of keeping us healthy, maybe we should turn first to the garden for help.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, RR1, Box 2120, Montville 04941, or e-mail them to dianagc@ctel.net. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.