Horsetail : I am winning the battle
Roger44 2
Posts: 9
Hello
This is my first posting on this forum. I think I'm winning the battle against horsetail in my garden. The first photo taken the 3rd of June shows what's left, each stick corresponding to a growth of horsetail.
The 2nd photo is typical of a bit of horstail deside the red spot. What's left is mangy, and probably comes from broken bits left in the ground near the surface.
There are five healthy growths in my lawn close to the neighbours fence which emerged a good month later but have grown quickly and are now high. I suspect they come from a deep root network.
The third photo shows the neighbours garden behind a piece of corrugated plastic (over on the left of the first photo). He sprayed with round-up 3 weeks ago, to no avail. (He thoughtfully put the plastic to protect my lawn). He also put down some lime earlier on this year as horsetail is reputed not to like lime.
Back in the 1970's I burrowed down vertically to follow the root of a piece of horsetail just in front of the door of the white toolshed. I was horrified to find a a yard deep horizontal root network as dense as a tennis net. . At the bottom of the gerden near the brook there were two-yard long horizontal pieces just below the surface. As this was then a vegetable garden I systematically pulled out every piece of horsetail that dared grow and quite often they came with a good foot of root (sandy soil). And after 10 years or so the horsetail gave up. But later we stopped cultivating the garden and in the last 20 years it had all spread back from the neighbour's garden again.
And then we decided to refurbish the house; bring in 8" of good soil and plant a lawn. I had to solve the problem before the lawn was laid. Spraying Round-Up around June last year had no effect whatsoever. Around August I brushed the horsetail to break its waxy protective skin and sprayed again, alas to no avail. At the end of august I got down on my hands and knees and every evening for about two weeks, cut the stems an inch or so above the ground and injected 20% Round-Up directly into the stems. Every stem more than about 2mm wide, wide enough to have a hollow inside, got its dose. Maybe a thousand injections in all. . This photo shows me in action, sorting out what's injectable. All that's green on the ground is horsetail. And then the new soil arrived, we planted the lawn and I crossed my fingers till this spring.
I'm letting what's left in my lawn grow in order to have a nice thick hollow stem, you know why. I mow around the sticks and shout at the grandchildren not to walk near the sticks.
Posts
the only thing we found removed horsetail or meresweed as its also called is something called kurtail you get it online , we dug down nearly 5 ft and believe me the roots go deeper than that . our local gardencenter said it is worse than japanese knotweed. if you do have it in your lawn when you mow make sure you have a grass catcher on your mower as if you just use a hovermower ect you will just spread it all around . dont make any compost with it also. it has been around since prehistoric times , so i think we are losing the battle with this weed , the only thing we doid find out was it does not like well nurished good soil, it thrives mostly on bad earth ,concrete ect, best of luck you will need it.
What a tremendous effort sir! Good luck keeping it at bay.
I've noticed some in a garden at the end of the road, about 200yrds from my front door. The current residents have no pride in their property and none of the neighbours between them and me can be described as keen gardeners. I don't know how it travels but I reckon it's only a matter of time
i think the trouble with this dreaded weed ,is that when it grows in clumps , it does look like a rather pretty beautiful green fern, so people could be mistaken into thinking its ok,as we were before we found out what it was . it travels in a very deep underground system of roots which go like a road map. when it has got to the green stage each and every one of those tiny spike kind leaves , will make a new plant .
We have it in our large garden and we've just come back after being away for a few days and are horrified to see how much it has sprung up since we last looked at it
It is slowly creeping down towards the gravelled area of the garden, so it is interesting to read the posts on here. "Wintersong" it will take quite a few years, but will get to your garden eventually. I haven't heard of Kurtail, but will take a look at that. I was told Glyphosate would work eventually, but you must need to break the cuticle of the plant stem, otherwise it will just run off it and into the ground. This is painstaking, as you need to break, tear or use scissors on every single shaft of the plants.
The ironic thing was when we moved to this house and first saw it, I thought it was asparagus.......not realising what a problem this was going to be.
In the week or two that I hadn't looked at that particular area of the garden, they have all shot up like little miniature trees/ferns
There is a lot about it on the internet and someone said, that it is best to wait until the Autumn and start to tackle it then. But I just can't stand back and let it actively grown from now throughout the Summer, as it will have increased so much by then.
My personal feeling on it is that it will never be eradicated at all, even digging down, because you are never going to get every single bit of the roots out of the ground. It will die back again during the winter months, but will reappear again in the Spring. It might be easier to move house.......
@Roger44 2..........I have just read your full post above.......respect to you for your patience. Unfortunately my husband has health problems and wouldn't be able to do this level of work on the worst area of our garden. I work from home,but don't have the time to do this either.........I am currently trying to source a second-hand flame thrower as an emergency measure
@dodo.......you are right, I thought we had asparagus in the garden when we came here 17 years ago
It was a while before we found out what it actually was and the problems we had inherited.
"I was told Glyphosate would work eventually, but you must need to break the cuticle of the plant stem"
I tried this, brushing the horsetail with a stiff bristle broom then spraying but it didn' t work at all. "At all" means it didn't die away yet to come back the next year, it seemed to be totally unaffected by this brushing + spraying.
It has been in my garden for the past 20 years. Every time I see a bit as I'm gardening, I pull it up. I will always have it but it has weakened a bit over the years. Also with dense planting, you don't notice it quite so much.
Marion34, thanks for your encouragement! I think that is really all we can do, we have half an acre, but it is slowly creeping towards a large chipped area. I dread what to do if it gets through the gravel, because it is very compacted and will be difficult to dig it up there
I had a plan to get hubby to dig as much as he could, then douse the area with strong weedkiller, then put weed suppressing mats down on it......we live in hope
In my area it grows through concrete, Tarmac, everything! Just keep pulling it out when you see a bit.