Having problems with a weed which I have been told is HorseTail.
Any suggestions to manage it?

B

In message
Chris Hogg wrote:

On Sun, 10 May 2015 17:06:00 +0200, tvrchimaera
wrote:


Having problems with a weed which I have been told is HorseTail.
Any suggestions to manage it?

B
Go to Australia, dig a hole, and pull it down by the roots. If you
can't manage that, there are some tips here.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=257

Getting rid of it isn't easy!

Getting rid of it isn't easy, but persistence pays. I got rid of it in
3 years by pulling it up or weedkilling it, and now it is no more
problem than other weeds.

Michael Bell



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On 10/05/2015 16:06, tvrchimaera wrote:
Having problems with a weed which I have been told is HorseTail.
Any suggestions to manage it?

B

Apart from moving house? I am told low yield tactical nukes are
reasonably effective against it but you should expect some regrowth.

Basically bruise and apply gel formulation glyphosate or dig down with a
large screwriver and pull up every single stem as far down as you can
get. A combination of these will keep it under control but the roots are
so extensive it will take decades to eliminate (forever if there is
somewhere nearby like a railway embankment where it can see the sun).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In message
Martin Brown wrote:

On 10/05/2015 16:06, tvrchimaera wrote:
Having problems with a weed which I have been told is HorseTail.
Any suggestions to manage it?

B

Apart from moving house? I am told low yield tactical nukes are
reasonably effective against it but you should expect some regrowth.

Basically bruise and apply gel formulation glyphosate or dig down with a
large screwriver and pull up every single stem as far down as you can
get. A combination of these will keep it under control but the roots are
so extensive it will take decades to eliminate (forever if there is
somewhere nearby like a railway embankment where it can see the sun).

Don't be discouraged by this macho-evil talk. If it's so aggressive,
why doesn't it take over the world? Horse-tail is plant like any
other. Pull it up or week-kill it every time it shows up and you'll
win. (But I do have to say that in the under-floor space of my house,
I saw what I though were mysterious electric wires, then I realised
they were horse-tail roots)

A neighbour (NOT next door) allowed horse-tail to take over his
garden. It looked interestingly different, as a moss-garden looks
interestingly different. It's your choice!

Michael Bell

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Although there are several translations possible for Horsetail in
German, I venture, that we talk about the same plant:

http://ackerschachtelhalm.net/images...uergerpark.jpg
http://www.botanikus.de/Botanik3/Ord...telhalm-gr.jpg

This plant is many things, a nuisance only among others. First of all,
its massive apparition signals that your soil may lack life, probably
due to its density. Horsetail does therefore often grow, where farmers
used heavy equipment on their fields, for a long time, without paying
much attention to the effect they have on the soil.

You will not get entirely rid of it, there is no known way to eradicate
it. But you can try to improve the quality of your soil, by adding
calcium oxide (quick lime) and discover the benefice of a horsetail
infusion on your other plants. It helps to fight plant maladies, some
caused by fungi. Depending on the plant and the objective, you spray the
infusion on the leafs or let it seep into the ground around the stems.

I cannot find a recipe in English, but I make this kind of infusion with
nettle. Letting the nettle virtually rot in cold water for two days
allows me to use the liquid undiluted on most plants. More people wait
for a full seven days, then dilute heavily; but I got a lot of nettle
and am very happy about it. I think that the procedure with Horsetail is
similar.

Good luck,

Michael
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In article ,
Michael Bell wrote:

Don't be discouraged by this macho-evil talk. If it's so aggressive,
why doesn't it take over the world? Horse-tail is plant like any
other. Pull it up or week-kill it every time it shows up and you'll
win. (But I do have to say that in the under-floor space of my house,
I saw what I though were mysterious electric wires, then I realised
they were horse-tail roots)

It's very condition-dependent, like many plants. I don't have it,
but I don't think that it prevents other plants from growing, any
more than my most persistent weed (field bindweed) does.

I have been trying to get rid of field bindweed from my vegetable
plot since 1978, including leaving parts fallow to use glyphosate,
and have not yet succeeded. Yes, you will win, but allow a good
many decades to do so ....

A neighbour (NOT next door) allowed horse-tail to take over his
garden. It looked interestingly different, as a moss-garden looks
interestingly different. It's your choice!

Yes, it's really quite attractive.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 12/05/2015 08:23, Martin wrote:

It grows between paving stones in The Netherlands. Under the paving stones is
sand, all the way down. The local authorities controlled Horse Tails by spraying
pavements with glyphosate. This now banned, mainly because local authorities
sometimes sprayed just before rain. When it rained during or just after
application, the glyphosate didn't have time to break down and it ended up in
the ground water.

It seems to prefer a sandy soil. Everywhere I have seen it as a serious
pernicious weed has been on sandstone and lighter clay soils.

Glyphosate spray on its own will not get anywhere near it. The stuff has
a silicon dioxide surface exoskeleton that is so hydrophobic that like
holly and ivy weedkiller never touches the plant surface and has little
or no effect. You have to bruise the stems first (or use insanely high
doses of glyphosate which is not a good idea in spray).

Gel formulation DIY using wallpaper paste is one way that delivers it.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 12/05/2015 10:18, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 12 May 2015 10:13:07 +0200, Michael Uplawski
wrote:

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On Tue, 12 May 2015 09:23:49 +0200,
Martin wrote:

It grows between paving stones in The Netherlands. Under the paving
stones is sand, all the way down. The local authorities controlled
Horse Tails by spraying pavements with glyphosate. This now banned,
mainly because local authorities sometimes sprayed just before rain.
When it rained during or just after application, the glyphosate didn't
have time to break down and it ended up in the ground water.

In most of these discussions, where we begin with 'plants' and end with
chemistry and the ways of mastering chemistry, I miss one darned
question, which appears to be banned by an unspoken law: Why?

because the Dutch are very careful about what gets in the ground water, in most
areas it is the source of drinking water.

That will be why the groundwater nitrate level in some areas is so high
that it isn't safe for babies and young children to drink it then.

See p4 in:
http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-ma...in-groundwater

(somewhat out of date for free access)

Not as bad as in Germany and worst of all Spain but not good.


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

It grows between paving stones in The Netherlands. Under the paving stones is
sand, all the way down.

The tallest hollyhock I ever saw (14 feet and covered in blooms) was
also growing "between" paving slabs. On lifting the slabs (I had to in
the end), I found the roots travelling at least that far in all
directions without any contact with soil. The plant seemed to be
thriving on top of a sand/hardcore base, but I've never understood how.
Seems some plants don't need any nutrition at all.

On Tue, 12 May 2015 13:55:51 +0200,
Martin wrote:
Locally they pump water from the Rhine and spray it onto the dunes, where the
water works are located. The dunes act as a natural filter. Recently they have
skimmed the top off the dunes "to remove alien plants". It could be to remove
the nasty substances that were in the water from the Rhine.

They should rather consider covering the dunes with some of the plants
which serve as a host for water cleaning bacteria. We have Iris,
Salicaires, and Scirpes (I do not know their english, nor the latin
names) for that purpose. Common reed is okay and chosen more often,
while a combination of different species is best.

If the dunes were to be “cleaned�, they would have to be leveled
completely, or replaced, as their tops will not contain most of the
realy nasty stuff, if any. Maybe they just began to look ugly with the
decomposing sludge which should cover the sand after a wile. But chances
are, those workers just removed alien plants. ;-)

Michael

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On Wed, 13 May 2015 00:09:59 +0200,
Martin wrote:
On Tue, 12 May 2015 16:18:42 +0200, Michael Uplawski
wrote:

On Tue, 12 May 2015 13:55:51 +0200,
Martin wrote:

They re moved the whole of the dirty layer. The Rhine has a lot of industrial
pollution in it, not just bacteria.

Did not make that claim. The sand of the dunes does a perfect job for
particles and some chemical pollution, both by providing with its grains
a surface to catch and keep “stuff� and by keeping a lot of the
pollution from simply sinking in deeper. The exact function depends on
the substance, filtered.

I did not mention filtering out bacteria, but *providing bacteria* in
the roots of specialized vegetation that eat, transform and thus clean
away a lot of polluting substances, even before they can sink into the
sand. Usual municipal sewage treatment plants under optimal conditions
may be effective at 70%... I have to guess, what this means; they
probably remove 70% of the pollution but event that is not very clear.

A domestic wet park with two succeeding basins, that works with
vegetation, is almost always better than that and appears to be less
sensible to altering conditions, like a changing volume of water,
temperature and the like, the latter probably for its modest size.
But nearby, such a system serves a whole village, looks nice and does
not smell at all (by the way).

As we are only two on our terrain and use a composting toilet, our
system comprises but 1 single basin, actually divided in two to
alternate between both sides for about two weeks each.

[This does, of course, not necessarily have the slightest impact on
horsetail. I do not have any and thus would not know... Actually, no one
has horsetail here. The pastures do not provide the necessary compaction
of the ground.]

Cheerio,

Michael
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