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Help with horsetail
Thomas Inglis
Posts: 2
I have this dreaded plant growing in my garden and need some help wading through the numerous ideas and suggestions for removal/eradication. The area affected is a flower bed about 10ft square and is next to a driveway and on two sides and a lawn on the other two. I intend on turning it into a rockery. I was going to bruise the stems and apply a strong roundup (neat 3000) but after reading up on it km doubtful as to its success. Digging is an option but a last one for obvious reasons Any help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated. T
0
Posts
Or you could move house!
we moved last year and our garden was full of this dreaded weed. as someone above states the only thing that will damage it is kurtail. but you must not spray it near any plants you wish to keep .
unfortunatly this weed is clever, and although you kill it in one space its root system is so deep (up to 8 ft down) that other branches pop up elsewhere
. apparently it does not like good soil and thrives on bad soil ect. before we found kurtail we dug right down tried to remove the roots, we used other weed killers with no joy .
we were going to put a patio down over a section of garden but the weed can easily push through that . so our only option was to relawn and we keep pulling up any odd ones we see , we seemed to be doing ok but our neighbour who adjoins us , doent do anything to his and it is still popping through
. from what i have researched we will have this pest for ever , apparently when one of the big volcanos , erupted Horsetail /meresweed whatever you call it ,was the first plant to regrow on site , and it was here on earth in the prehistoric times . so as you can see it is a bit of a problem but can be contained with a lot of effort.
a chap in the garden center told me it is many times worse than the dreaded japanese knotweed. but just keep on top of it you can live with it.its just a nuisance. good luck
@ dodo. I'm thinking a healthy dose of Kurtail (or Timbrel) then perhaps abandon rockery idea.
Plan as things stand is to treat it, wait x weeks, dig down perhaps a few feet/metre and put a layer of gravel, then lime, then gravel, then soil then turf/lawn.
I really wanted my rockery though. What's the effects of Kurtail in the long run. For example you can replant after 4 weeks using Roundup (super duper stuff (360g/L)
I had a problem with horsetail about 50 years ago. It grew thickly so that very quickly it completely hid the gound under it. I learnt all the stuff that dodo told you except the bit about knot weed. I don't think anyone had heard of that 50 years ago! I was advised to keep pulling the horsetail out and it would go away. It did, and has only recently returned. Odd spikes pop up here and there, and I loosen the soil around the spike and pull up as much of what is below ground level as possible. You have to take care that a bit doesn't break off the spike or it will start a fresh plant. It can even push its way through concrete. I never heard of Kurtail but maybe if you clear the bed, dig it out as deep as you can and put a heavy dose of the stuff across the area you might encourage the weed to go elsewhere. Good luck!