Controlling Horsetails

JJ Grandits · #1 08/25/12, 07:47 AM

Does anyone have a way of controlling Horsetails (equisetum)? I have a bed full of perennials and shrubs and the stuff is driving me crazy.

#2 08/25/12, 08:05 AM

You probably wouldn't want to go to the trouble, but its considered a fancy dish in Japan. It's called "tsukushi".

whitewolf · #3 08/25/12, 08:27 AM

Garden Guides, Your Guide to Everything Gardening
look under "pest and diseases.
sounds like a real chore...good luck.

where I want to · #4 08/25/12, 09:51 AM

No- I've always just pulled them. If they are pulled consistantly, they get fewer and fewer each year.

Island of Blueb · #5 08/25/12, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zong

You probably wouldn't want to go to the trouble, but its considered a fancy dish in Japan. It's called "tsukushi".

That is very interesting! I have plenty of this plant in places I wish it were gone from. Good to know it has some food use.

where I want to · #6 08/25/12, 01:35 PM

A certain part of the plant at a certain time and prepared in a certain way is edible. But on the whole, not.

JJ Grandits · #7 08/25/12, 04:19 PM

The problem is that this is for a property I maintain the Landscape for. I don't have the time to stay on it constantly. I've pulled it and pulled it and hit it with roundup ( which I hate using)and short of taking a flame thrower to it I don't know what to do.

katydidagain · #8 08/25/12, 08:06 PM

Weed B Gone will kill it; RU won't.

fireweed farm · #9 08/25/12, 09:20 PM

Each spring, mulch bed with cardboard, tightly right up to the perennials. Then apply bark mulch. You will still need to pull shoots out of the plants themselves but this should stop the summer growth between the plants.
If you've ever dug them by root you will have noticed they go miles, don't waste your time trying to eliminate.
There is no magic cure. Flames only burn tops off. As you will know roundup doesn't stop them. Other herbicides work for just a few weeks and they always come back- yet overspraying and frying the good plants is a huge risk.

farmerDale · #10 08/25/12, 11:58 PM

There are some herbicides that work and actually kill it, roots and all. Once and for all. Amitrol is one of them.

geo in mi · #11 08/26/12, 07:32 AM

For some understanding of this weed: http://www.btny.purdue.edu/weedscien...orsetail03.pdf

It's interesting that Purdue mentions this weed in Indiana. As long as I lived there, and lived around some perpetual wet conditions, I've never seen it or heard of it--or else I just wasn't that observant. Seems like it particularly likes a wet condition during the reproductive stage. Maybe removing the wet condition would help? Otherwise, maybe, if you have an applicator license, some of the super potent chemicals mentioned....

geo

Paquebot · #12 08/26/12, 11:00 AM

If it relied on wet conditions, the only places where I know it grows is the opposite. Where I originally learned of it is almost pure sand overlooking the Wisconsin River. If the river were helping it to grow, the root system would have to be really deep and vast. Latest place discovered is about an eighth of a mile from a tamarack swamp and on a sandy knoll. Apparently it only needs a wet area to begin a new colony and then it doesn't matter after that.

Martin

farmerDale · #13 08/26/12, 03:38 PM

The areas I have problems are heavy wet soils in draws where water runs each spring. That said, I have noticed it along sandy lake beaches, etc. as Martin states. Google this weed, and you will find its root system is bizarre, and exceptionally deep. I can't remember the depth, but it was many feet, not 3 or 4. And as Martin mentions, the system is not only deep, it is VAST, with countless sites from which to sprout a new shoot. Which means tillage is a lost cause generally, unlike other perennial weeds which can often be starved by continuous cutting. Hence a one time application of a herbicide to actually kill this weed dead. But there are very few herbicides that kill this nasty weed roots and all.