stewart64
Full Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2016 11:01 am

Horsetail season back

After a year at my new house I have to say horsetail is still the biggest headache. I have huge herbaceousborders where I Iet wild flowers grow rampant in a planned fashion and try to have zero toleration of anything I don't want.

At the moment I am probably removing up to 100 a day over a quarter acre plot. As for the common weeds like brambles, dandelions and nettles...well they got pretty much sorted within weeks amd rarely reappear.

If I had to put together a list of the worst weeds I am currently dealing with horsetail is the number one headache, followed by cinquefoil, celandine, herb robert and vetch. But tbh the latter four are so shallow rooted they hold no real fears.

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Lindsaylew82
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2115
Joined: Wed May 21, 2014 9:26 pm
Location: Upstate, SC

Horsetail is a toughie... it has deeeeeeeeep rhizomes. That's where the real battle of destruction wades. It produces spores instead of seeds and they are produced by the thousands. Springy legged spores. They travel far. But they need moisture.

Those rhizomes. Nasty wee beasts. They like acidic soil, so raising the soil pH may help in your fight using lime. You're gonna need to dig and rake, dig and rake. And you can't stop. You can try to cover with cardboard and heavy mulch, but that junk grows through concrete. If you let it go, you need to cut the strobuli off (you can steam them and eat them!!!) before they spore out.

Best of luck to you! Vigilance is your friend here!



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