Getting rid of horse tail?

[TheLightOfEarlyMorning]

Any hope? It’s throughout my grass (I don’t want a lawn…) I'm trying to tame some land that was left to grow for years… I’m aiming for natural rather than manicured, but this is a step too far!

You can't. They've been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth. My garden is full of them - I just pull them up before they get too big (you can't extract the roots, they go down too far, and one tiny fragment left behind = more horsetails). Sorry!

Old gardener's joke.
New gardener - When's the best time to weed out horsetail?
Old gardener - Sunday.
New gardener - Which Sunday?
Old gardener - Every Sunday.

What @Tsulsaquoola said is true.
Could you do raised beds over the top of your lawn with a membrane down before the compost goes on?

Ah well. You can tell I’m a new gardener 😅 Last year I just mowed it…. Oops 😁

You're not the first to do that @TheLightOfEarlyMorning .

I don't know if you know Joe Swift, but he's a TV gardener, does Chelsea Flower Show and Gardener's World. When he got an allotment he rotavated his horsetail effectively chopping it up and spreading it all over the plot!

I have it at the allotment but it doesn't seem to grow through the grass (which I mow of course). I just Grey Rock it.

We’ve got it too, it's been creeping along the lanes and fields around us, and is now infesting some of our beds. A few years ago we had the guy from Beechgrove Garden (can't recall his name, the one from 'sunny Joppa') give a local talk, and I specifically asked him about it. He said the roots have been found down mInes, so there's no hope! He said just keep hoeing the beads, which is fine around a single stem shrub, but when it comes up in in spreading plants, it's a no go. You can bash it with a spade to break the silicone skin and then weed kill if you use it, otherwise I'm afraid we are stuck with it.

George, from sunny Joppa.

Pulling does weaken it. Eventually. But it's a full time job.

Yes, just keep on pulling it up, time after time after time. Eventually it will get bored and mostly piss off elsewhere. I use the same technique on the brambles all over my allotment.

I googled how to get rid of it and I found advice from a famous gardener (can't remember who, but I knew the name) who advised moving house. I took his advice and it worked perfectly.

LOVE George from sunny Joppa.

@TheCompactPussycat That's what I do too with brambles and also ivy.

Yep, was in a geology museum a few weeks ago and wryly noted this pic of horsetail in one of the “Jurassic plants” painted backdrops.
We have it too, we pull it out at the root and bin it separately but it does keep coming back. Roots are too deep to dig up - best you can do is keep it at bay.

James Golden, who has a celebrated garden in the US called Federal Twist, uses horsetail as a decorative ground cover!

The pps are right, you can't really eliminate it. You can pull it as soon as you spot it, and that will keep it under control. But tbh, if it's growing in an area of mixed planting, it doesn't harm other plants, and it will just coexist without causing any problems. You can harvest it and use it for various things as it's v high in silica (iirc). You can make a natural fungicide out of dried horsetail boiled up in some water.

RHS advises exactly that: "If horsetail appears in lawns, it can be kept in check by mowing regularly."