Horsetails

Taf · 13-05-2011, 13:49

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...

Quote:

The pesticides review by the European Union led to based herbicides containing ammonium sulfamate becoming unlicensed, and therefore effectively banned, from 2008. This situation arose as the Irish Rapporteur refused to review the data supplied unless it contained details of animal testing on dogs. As there was already substantial animal data within the package supplied the data pack holder felt further tests without substantiation would cause unnecessary animal suffering. Its licence was not withdrawn on grounds of safety of efficacy

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?

**Derek** · 13-05-2011, 13:56

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

Taf · 13-05-2011, 14:06

Quote:

...can send its roots down a several feet

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

joglynne · 13-05-2011, 14:30

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.

danielf · 13-05-2011, 14:34

Bit like Japanese knotweed then.

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

Oh. Just realised. It's this stuff.

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

Taf · 13-05-2011, 14:35

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

Or a nuke.

From orbit.

**Maggy J** · 13-05-2011, 16:50

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.

danielf · 13-05-2011, 17:03

Mind your own business...

**Maggy J** · 13-05-2011, 18:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

Mind your own business...

A very pretty plant.

danielf · 13-05-2011, 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maggy J

A very pretty plant.

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.

Julian · 13-05-2011, 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

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.

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

heero_yuy · 13-05-2011, 18:29

I don't have these but I've got enchanters nightshade. Just can't get rid of the stuff. Every year I pull out all the stuff I can see but it keeps coming back. That and goose grass. It's no wonder that some people just concrete gardens over.

danielf · 13-05-2011, 18:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

I don't have these but I've got enchanters nightshade. Just can't get rid of the stuff. Every year I pull out all the stuff I can see but it keeps coming back. That and goose grass. It's no wonder that some people just concrete gardens over.

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

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

**Maggy J** · 13-05-2011, 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

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.

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

heero_yuy · 13-05-2011, 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

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

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

Tried that, they just come back the next year.