Horsetail

[lifeissweet]

Has anyone successfully dealt with this? I have a garden that is totally overrun with the stuff. I have tried all sorts to get rid of it, but pulling it up makes it worse. It spores. You can't dig it out because the roots are too far down.

Everything I've read says it takes years and years of vigilance and patience to be rid of it.

One year I tried waiting for it to grow enough foliage before bruising it and painting glyphosate onto it with a paintbrush. It just looked awful because I had to wait for it to spring up like a lawn and then go brown before I could get rid. Then it came back with a vengeance anyway.

This year I have just gone out every single day and pulled out any shoots I see, which might be making it grow more, but is, at least, keeping the place looking tidy. It's a pain in the arse, though.

It ruins my garden and I'm sick to death of the stuff.

I have it on my allotment - overun when I first took it on 7 years ago. I did nuke it with some heavy duty weedkiller the first couple of years, got on top of it and then was ill for a year and it took its chance !

I’m afraid you just have to keep on top of it and keep digging it out. I’m moving some raised beds this year and have already exposed some brutes of root systems.

I have put some seriously heavy weed fabric down and cover it with bark or slabs if Im not growing things in that place so I can then deal with outbreaks elsewhere.

Its a lot better than it was but yes its taken years.

I feel your pain! I’ve got the same problem in the house I moved into 30 years ago, absolutely rampant. It seems to be worse this year too. I pull the shoots all through the summer months, but that isn’t really the answer, just makes you feel you are doing something about it.

Glyphosate doesn’t really work, but a fairly new weed killer by Neudorff claims to kill horsetail, and contains Pelargonic acid. I find that it does kill top growth, especially if you bruise it, but I don’t think it kills the roots, so maybe not that effective.

www.amazon.co.uk/Neudorff-fast-acting-weedkiller-750ml/dp/B007XD65H4/ref=sr_1_6?adgrpid=104015987512&gclid=Cj0KCQjwvLOTBhCJARIsACVldV3KVJBgzeMqFQijfYrp_h9XfrU0YW7pdVFngQRy3Oq7xFYksSZncBAaAixHEALw_wcB&hvadid=445925521180&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9045829&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=16977265084831469826&hvtargid=kwd-312138144902&hydadcr=5968_1758568&keywords=neudorff+weedkiller&qid=1651314689&sr=8-6

You have a few options, but it’s going to take several years of regular treatment. Physical weed barriers don’t work as the stems will just grow sideways under them!

I’ve found this stuff to be a magic bullet for our garden - www.progreen.co.uk/weed-control/horsetail-marestail-control/kurtail-evo-horsetail-killer-k-plus-bundle/
The instructions say to only apply it via a boom sprayer but I used a knapsack sprayer and it worked fine.

I had some early success with this stuff in a knapsack sprayer but found I had to re-treat the garden every 3 weeks between April-Sept. www.progreen.co.uk/weed-control/horsetail-marestail-control/sbk-brushwood-killer-1l-kplus-250ml-marestail-woody-weeds/
My garden is 1000m^2 so this got quite expensive and very time consuming.

I’ve been told that there are 2 other things available that are magic for getting rid of horsetail but they can no longer be legally sold as weedkiller due to new rules. These are 2,4-D weedkiller (which you’d have to import from the USA) and ammonium sulphamate. The good news is that ammonium sulphamate is still available to buy in the UK as a compost accelerator (e.g. furoreproducts.co.uk/ammon-sulph-5kg ) though obviously I can’t recommend that you use it for anything outside this purpose 😜.

Good luck!

And never ever try to dig it out, that’s the absolute worst thing you can do! Every single 1mm root fragment that remains can easily propagate into an entire new horsetail root system. If you try to dig it out you’ll never get rid of it.

Thank you all.

Interesting about the different weed killer options. I will look into those. I don't want to go full scorched Earth on the whole garden, though and it's all in my beautiful flower beds. I really have to choice but to pull those bits or my beds look like a lawn.

It's just such an arse of a plant!

I am well aware that pulling it makes it worse, but part of me thinks that it doesn't matter so much if it's there as long as it can't be seen. I will just have to resign myself to the fact that 80% of my gardening time will be tied up in getting rid of every single little shoot as soon as it appears. All summer. Every year. Forever.

Of course I would never dream of using something for an illegal purpose, but I'm sure my compost needs accelerating and what if some spilled?

Hello. @lifeissweet did you ever get rid of the mares/horse tail.

I've got lots in my back bed and just looking at the various options. It's scaring me that the advice isn't to dig it up as I definitely want it gone!!

I've got some in my shady back border. My solution is to grow plants that outcompete it.

Ah that was going to be my next questuon

Can I just plant the bed up again? Are there plants it will overtake or can I plant anything?

Mine is mostly buried in astilbes and Japanese anemones.

Oooh those are both very pretty.

I really want to plant it so will look out for those 😍

In the conditions I've got, they grow more like weeds than the weeds do.

I've got some ox eye daisies as they were at the supermarket and they look so happy but reading they're also invasive 🙄. Can't win!