Anyone know about horse/mares tail?

Our lockdown project was to clear an area of our garden that has been covered in tarpaulin for about 25 years by the previous owners and plant a wild meadow of grass and wild flower seeds.

It turns out that the plastic was probably to cover an infestation of marestail and it’s come back with a vengeance!

We’re pulling it out from amongst our grass, there’s lot of it, does anyone know if the grass will eventually beat if we keep removing it? The internet is full of doom & gloom!

And we’re pretty disappointed, who knew it would survive all that time covered up!

I had bloody millions of it on a piece of garden I bought from the neighbour, eventually gave up and topsoiled and turfed it, as it doesn’t like competition. I do wonder if I ever cut any borders etc in there, if it’ll come back, lies dormant etc, who knows.

I had decent success with kurtail, if you want to keep any of the land for soil and growing stuff, that’s the way to go.

It’s a prehistoric nightmare plant. It’s roots can stay dormant and it will come up through all sorts, I’ve seen it push through tarmac on many occasions. Best thing to do is heavy doses of glyphoste based weed killer. Don’t waste your time with B & Q stuff, it’ll only brown the leaves, you need a systemic weedkiller to get into the roots and kill the lot. Will take several weeks to work and may need more than one application. Don’t try and dig it out, you’ll just break up the (deep) roots and it will come back.

PS, glyphosate doesn’t kill bees, dogs or pose any meaningful risk to humans of cancer or any of the other rubbish spouted by middle class environmentalists with no scientific understanding but read something on a Facebook save the hedgehogs page so it must be true (don’t ask, sore point and serve me right for engaging with a complete num-wit). It is also not a residual herbicide so won’t stay active in the soil for long, hours or a couple of days at worst, it works by being absorbed by the leaves of the plant.

I took over an allotment that was covered with it. I spent an age putting down glyso and digging it over and removing the roots (I was doing it in my sleep). I gave it up a few years ago but it remained marestail free.

It’s a prehistoric nightmare plant.

It certainly is, since the Carboniferous Period, about 100 million years ago, so anything that can survive that long is pretty tenacious!
Apparently the roots can go as deep as 2 metres!
This may be your only option…

I would expect the grass to outcompete it if the soil is nutrient rich enough but that means the wildflowers wont thrive. Maybe sow grass seeds like italian rye, cut and remove clippings regularly and hard for a year or two. That will remove nutrients and the mares tail, then harrow and sow wild fliwer seed mix

I do wonder if I ever cut any borders etc in there, if it’ll come back, lies dormant etc, who knows.

at my folks house it found it’s way back up through a patio that has been there for over 30 years.

imagine if it was delicious – it looks like it could be.

before using weedkiller, you need to reduce the waxy surface for the weedkiller to absorb otherwise it just runs off the surface. Heard that you can use soapy water for this, but expect something more like isopropyl alcohol would work better, or diesel (but this also kills the soil so maybe don’t!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q7KdoutFGM or WD40….

I had this all over an allotment that had a no chemical weed killer policy, oh how fun that was. I never got rid of it, it spreads like a tw@ and I had to hoe constantly just to keep on top of it.

We had it waist high on the veg patch at the end of the garden.

Let it grow a bit as glyphosphate is absorbed through the leaves, then go nuclear.

Roundup 360 (the industrial stuff you put about half a cup in a 5l sprayer) is actually more dilute than the premixed stuff you get in B&Q, which is good, it keeps the plant alive long enough for it to be absorbed right down into the roots. You just don’t get that satisfying “kills weeds in 24h” feeling of watching it die in front of your eyes, only to come back in a few weeks requiring you to buy more weedkiller.

Spray the whole area, wait for it all to die, then spray again to get the stuff that was hiding under the grass (and probably a third time). We did this one year and it’s not come back (and has even stopped appearing in borders elsewhere in the garden.

It also doesn’t like alkaline soil, so adding some lime (as long as you have no plans to grow ericaceous plants) to the soil and using a tiler* to work it in will help.

And it’s not great with competition, so till* the soil to get it nice and loose over the whole area, then scatter bags and bags of flowers and grass seeds and water them in so they grow quickly before it has a chance to come back and get established.

*beg, buy or borrow one, it’ll save you hours of digging.

Thanks all. So my thinking of keep pulling it out and allowing the grass to keep growing might just work with enough patience.

I don’t really want to put lime down as we’ve already scattered a load of wild flower seeds, and they are starting to grow OK. For the same reason I can’t nuke it with galop – I have used it for other areas with mixed results. I’ve just sprayed WD40 on a patch to see how that goes.

In hindsight we should have probably not sown anything this year and just nuked everything that popped up. The fact it had been covered for so long I really expected everything to be dead!

I had bloody millions of it on a piece of garden I bought from the neighbour,

We have tried to sell that patch to the neighbours but they were having none of it. I even offered it for free if they built a new fence, and no takers. The neighbours were there 25 years ago before it got covered up so they knew what was buried beneath!

How about the injecting it with glysophate? Anyone tried it? Gets right into the roots apparently

I had it at my last place and it was sprayed and sprayed. Eventually it was manageable but I imagine it has come storming back without some being on it

Now there’s a small patch on the border of my garden that’s a wild grass area so I do let want to nuke it with sprayed on weed killer so I’m contemplating injecting it

My father-in-law had loads of it in his borders, but he did eventually get rid of it. I don’t know how though and I can’t ask him because he passed away over two years.

I get it sometimes in my back garden. When I used to treat it with weedkiller I would “bruise” the plant with a hammer, i.e. lie it flat on some wood and gently hit it to break the surface and allow the weedkiller to get into the actual plant itself. This is required, because as noted above, the surface is waxy and quite tough.

However, I only had to deal with a few patches of it, bruising loads of it could be a pain.

Glyphosate and other weed killers won’t work unless you’re bashing the stuff, the waxy coating will cause it to run off and not do its job.

On a lawn its “easy” to deal with, it doesn’t like being cut so long as you’re mowing it will go away and eventually it will loose to the grass as it weakens but anything which knocks back the grass and your horsetail will be back.

The suggestion it’s competition it doesn’t like isn’t true (invariably you’ll see this mentioned in regards to turf/lawn where people mow) so your wild flower patch isn’t likely to deal with it well as you’ll not be mowing.

It will out compete at worst or happily co habbit with ivy, nettles, brambles, himalayan balsam, rhododendron and buddlea to name but a few of left to its own devices. The only thing it seems to loose out to is bind weed but you don’t want that either, despite the pretty flowers.

Your choice really is bash it with a rake then glyphosate which is fine if you’re not worried about the surrounding plant life, which will die better than the horsetail or hoeing, lots of hoeing or of course give up now. All are a long game but at least the latter tends not to result in actual insanity.

It’s rhizomatous and it spores so you need to keep digging (looooong black roots) and keep cutting.

In hindsight we should have probably not sown anything this year and just nuked everything that popped up. The fact it had been covered for so long I really expected everything to be dead

3 years of covered with heavy plastic, lifting every 3 weeks and glyphosating the hell out of it has successfully killed off everything except the horse tail. That was back within two weeks of lifting the plastic to rotovate and grass. “this year” isn’t likely to have worked so don’t be too hard on your self.

Glyphosate 360 (I use the Roseate one) is good, and will work eventually

The absolute best thing for Horsetail is Ammonium Sulphamate. It was an actual weedkiller, then the Irish wouldn’t test it on dogs, so it was banned for that purpose in the EU.

You can still buy it as a compost accelerator. Just don’t – whatever you do – mix it up and accidentally spill it on the Horsetail

Ammonium Sulphamate (Sulfamate) – Compost Accelerator, Flame retardant

Kurtail will work, no need to bash or bruise, but it’ll take a few applications. Injecting the amount I had would take forever.

Kurtail

Was ammonium sulphamate and essentially stump killer, its now just glyphosate (because its banned for sale in the EU as a weed killer)

It was an actual weedkiller, then the Irish wouldn’t test it on dogs, so it was banned for that purpose in the EU

Not true, the package holder wouldn’t test it on dogs, the Irish insisted it should be for licensing for sale as a broad spectrum home use herbicide.

The package holder refused on the grounds that testing the “perfectly safe” chemical on dogs would bring unnecessary animal suffering, much more than allowing home use of a chemical potentially poisonous to pets.

The Irish wouldn’t agree to the reissue the licence.

Given the history of chemicals companies and businesses in general taking a stance of ethics over profit in inclined to think there was something in the Irish demands.

It was rampant on my allotment but it’s sort of undercontrol now, as we didn’t want to use loads of glysophate using cardboard as barrier & lots of mulching keeps it undercontrol where its manageable to remove it by weeding.
My advice :-
Break up top soil and remove as many roots as possible
Remove top 3-4 inches and screen it for any remaining bits of marestail
Place a double layer of cardboard down, lay top soil down on top of cardboard
Sow your wildflower seeds
It will weave it’s way through the cardboard but the roots should be quite easy to pull out now.

I don’t really want to put lime down as we’ve already scattered a load of wild flower seeds

I doubt a bit of lime will bother them tbh. Depends whats in the mix of course.

I’ve got it in my allotment bad.

Had it five years and spend loads of time this time of year pulling the ***** out.

Still got it…

I had it on my plot also.

I changed plots.

I also had a ‘chemical free’ allotment infested with this stuff. Growing other stuff reduces it through competition but it just keeps coming back. Digging it out is a nightmare because it snaps in sections and each section can root and grow – even the stuff above ground becomes roots when buried.

I was told to dig a five foot cubed dirt from around each plant and then burn the soil for at least three days. Repeat for each and every plant. you can then return all of the burnt soil and there is a 5-10% chance it won’t come back

Treat it as a cash crop – your sitting on a goldmine 😀

https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/horsetail-herb-50g.html

Have a look on gum tree, i think there’s a couple of Diplodocus going free to a good home.

😁 🦕🦕

+1 for Kurtail, not cheap but seems to be effective, a mixture of good old 2-4D and Glyphosate. I am in the process of eradicating it in and around my beds and hardstanding areas but a) don’t want to kill everything else in the beds and b) spray chemical about as it’s very wasteful and 2-4D is a nasty, (part of the “agent orange” used as a defoliant in Vietnam), so I mix up a small amount with water +-10% solution in a jam jar and using a paint brush apply it directly to the target, an hour or so every couple of weeks, I don’t expect it to come back next year.

Treat it as a cash crop – your sitting on a goldmine

Horsetail is a plant. The above ground parts are used to make medicine. People use horsetail for “fluid retention” (edema), urinary tract infections, loss of bladder control (urinary incontinence), wounds, and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses.

Ideal for if you’re wanting to take the piss then 🙂

I think all the scare stories re allotments are a red herring in the op’s case. Regular mowing and comeptition from grasses will see it off after a while. The tricky bit will be getting the wild flowers established. Seedingvthem into cleared patches amongst the grasses would work. I mentioned using something like Italian rye grass further up as its not too persistent, once nutrient levels drop and the horsetail is gone you could turn it over and ske fescues, bents and poas and seed in the wildflowers, a bit of lime wouldnt hurt eithervat this point, it would help control the horsetails and bigger grasses. Establishing a wild flower meadows is not a quick thing.

Treat it as a cash crop – your sitting on a goldmine 😀

https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/horsetail-herb-50g.html

We’ve probably pulled out nearly 10kg – that’s a fair bit of cash 🙂

I think all the scare stories re allotments are a red herring in the op’s case. Regular mowing and comeptition from grasses will see it off after a while.

Establishing a wild flower meadows is not a quick thing.

I’m hoping instead of mowing that hand pulling them will help, and allowing the grass to grow. This is what I’m clinging on to! It’s not mowable, even if I wanted to, as the ground is so uneven.

Our brief research before throwing seeds down said that it would just need strimming back once or twice a year. Turns out there’s a bit more to it than we realised.

The grumpy neighbours at the end told us it looks a mess and were shocked when we said that it’s going to be a wild meadow, which makes me want to get it going even more. They didn’t seem impressed by us wanting it full of bees & wildlife. The bees seem happy already with the few flowers that have grown.

Our brief research before throwing seeds down said that it would just need strimming back once or twice a year.

If you didnt have the horse tail, cutting more often will rid of that and then you can focus on the flowers later imo.

If you strim make sure you rake away the cuttings too.

The grumpy neighbours at the end told us it looks a mess

Print off a planning notification for errection of a few pig sheds?

Trouble with pulling it out or mowing is doesn’t remove the roots. You’ll keep it under control but if you stop it come back with a vengeance. We used to use and additive which I think was basically cooking oil when ideas involved in weed control professional to help it penetrate waxy leaf plants.

STUMPYJON: glyphosate is horrendous and kills soil flora rendering it a dead aggregate. Go toe to toe with me on this if you like. I have plenty knowledge and experience to back this up.

Trouble with pulling it out or mowing is doesn’t remove the roots. You’ll keep it under control but if you stop it come back with a vengeance

Wont matter if a decent meadow sward is established as it’ll be out competed.

glyphosate is horrendous and kills soil flora

Which is needed for a diverse meadow community so that mycorrhizal associations are established.

If you strim make sure you rake away the cuttings too.

don’t put them on your compost though to use at a later stage.

don’t put them on your compost though to use at a later stage.

Indeed, chuck em into that arsey neighbours garden!!!