Horsetails
 

A very invasive weed that can send its roots down a several feet. A couple of inches of cut root will make a new plant, or spores can spread it like wildfire. Waxy, so very difficult for most weedkillers to grip and kill.

The EU banned the only weedkiller that actually did the job (Ammonium Sulphamate) because the Irish didn't want to kill a dog...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_sulfamate

Anyway, our local area was free of this pest until our direct neighbour imported it in contaminated soil he "recovered" from a building site.

4 years ago he had a 1 sq metre patch of it, and a few roots sent up shoots into our garden all Spring and Summer (which all I dug out carefully, or crushed and poisoned).

The next 3 years I gave him my supply of weedkiller to kill it off, but he hardly used the weedkiller all.

This year he has around 14 sq metres of the stuff and has decided to ignore it totally.

I have just found several sprouts coming up in our lawn, 3 metres from our common boundary. Weedkiller is not an option in the lawn, or at least not any weedkiller which would be effective.

We have been good neighbours since we first arrived here, but now his total lack of interest has left me exasperated.

He won't even allow me to enter his garden to hoe it all down and then use weedkiller on the regrowth. The garden is mostly unused apart from drying laundry, they have no pets and no children.

What should I do?

:mis:

Re: Horsetails
 

http://gallery.roadbikereview.com/da.../NukeOrbit.jpg

Seriously though it sounds crappy, could you dig a trench or sink a wall into the boundary to stop the spread?

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It's like raspberry roots on steroids with a miner's helmet.

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Oh I hate that stuff. Luckily we don't have any but my Dad's garden was over run by the stuff which had spread from his next door neighbours "wild" garden. No amount of reasoning with them would convince them that it was a pernicious weed. They believed that there was no such thing as a weed .. just the wrong plant growing in the wrong place.

Re: Horsetails
 

Bit like Japanese knotweed then.

---------- Post added at 14:34 ---------- Previous post was at 14:31 ----------

Oh. Just realised. It's this stuff.

http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/horsetail.JPG

Absolute nightmare. I had it on the drive at a previous house. Impossible to remove. It just breaks off.

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A bit more googling and I see that spirit vinegar might help.

Or a nuke.

From orbit.

Re: Horsetails
 

One of the oldest species of plants on the planet.Imagine my delight when I found that out when I was seven.A living fossil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetum

I love them but then I 'm not plagued by them..Convolvulus is my current bane.

Re: Horsetails
 

Mind your own business...

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A very pretty plant.:)

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In someone else's garden perhaps. Not in my bloody lawn. It took me three years to fully eradicate the stuff from my garden, and that involved killing off parts off my lawn. :mad:

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I have found the best treatment for annoying lawn problems is a liberal dose of slabbus pavingii. :)

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Glysophate (i.e. Roundup) should do the trick.

http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/enchanter.htm

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Which proves the point of when is a weed a weed?When it's growing where it's not wanted..

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So anyone got a cure for convolvulus?I'm sick of the stuff and no amount of weeding gets rid of it.Not found ANYTHING that kills it off right down into the roots.

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http://www.allotment.org.uk/articles...What_to_do.php

:shrug:

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I love the bit about it growing a foot behind your back.:D

Anything I've ever painted onto the leaves has failed to work down into the roots as the roots are sooooo damned looooong.

Periwinkle is almost as bad.

Re: Horsetails
 

Perhaps that's why you need to re-apply?

Some tips here. Not sure if they're any good. I never had to deal with the stuff.

http://www.allotments-uk.com/forum/t...?TOPIC_ID=3983

Re: Horsetails
 

:D Sorry to giggle - but I know what you mean.
The only thing that worked for me was tenacity and vigilence at all times - and be gentle with the b***** roots. They WILL disappear eventually.
I wonder if a flame thrower would work quicker?

Re: Horsetails
 

For years I dug it out of mine and my neighbours garden only to find it return the next year.

Then we got rid of the old chain link fencing for concrete posts and panels. After digging it out it has never returned?

My theory is, if it has nothing to climb it goes elsewhere.

Re: Horsetails
 

So that means removing all the bushes,trees and other plants..Not much point in having a garden really.:D

Personally IF it was up to me I'd cover the lawn with gravel and have a Japanese garden.Only pebbles,sand,statues and plants only in pots and a rake to organise a Zen garden.

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Wimp! :)

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Probably :( but I'm not much of a gardener anyway, just wanted to keep it tidy and without that hideous weed. Once the suspect fencing went there was only a small tree left in mine and nothing in the neighbours.

But this was years ago. Since then I have a new neighbour who has filled her garden with trees and shrubs and my small tree has been blown down and logged. Still no sign of the weed returning. :)

Re: Horsetails
 

Bindweed is coming through our board fence from next door too...

I just point the tip back into his side of the boundary...

And as for dandelions... he let both his lawns turn into golden fields of them and decided to mow AFTER the seed heads had dried... so we'll all be pulling dandelions soon enough too...

It's the Typhoid Mary of gardens.

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:D

They make great soup and don't make you wet the bed. :D
The roots are a bit of a devil though.
Squirrels and their hoarding habbits - nightmare.And I don't have a good recipe or want to find one. That's all I'm going to say :mad: :D

Re: Horsetails
 

We had a bit of a quiet chat about it last evening.

He was soooooooo disheartened by the fact that it all grows back despite his best efforts (sic) that I again offered my help. He was getting severe grief about it all from his neighbour the other side which had severly strained their long good neighbourliness.

Glyphosate weedkiller ordered from eBay, permission to use it granted. But I told him that he would have to put a bit of effort in too. He just seemed glad of help to sort it out, and has promised to pay any costs.

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Sounds good and hopefully will cure the problem

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Result! :tu:

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Well done Taf. :tu:

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I think he preferred my softly-softly approach to the constant moaning he was getting from his other neighbours.

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One method that I have used to kill horsetail is:
aquire a syringe and needle (friendly nurse,doctor,or vet) and then inject Glyphosate weedkiller into the stem. This bypasses the silicon based outer protection layer.
It's quite time consuming but effective.

Re: Horsetails
 

Phase one is completed: strimmed off the tops and trampled the stems to bruise them to allow the glyphosate weedkiller in. All 20+ sq metress of it.

All we need now is some still air to get the spraying done... has anybody else noticed how windy it's been this Spring?