Mares tail

[Ed]

HELP! Please can any one tell me how to get rid of the weed Mares Tail

[Jan Flora]

Napalm. Agent Orange. A big bulldozer and a full-soil replacement with Typar underlayment. (Or concrete.)

Equisetum has underground roots that go all the way to China. Or it seems like it. The coal seams in my area are lithified Giant Horsetail plants from the Pleistocene. (!)

When you pull the Mare's Tails up, get as much root as you can, each time. I have it in my garden and all over the ranch, in our wetter hay meadows. It's awful stuff. It's prehistoric. So are sharks. Good luck, pard.

I've always wondered if sweetening up the soil pH with lime would make Horsetail (Equisetum) feel unwelcome. I haven't tried it yet, but intend to give it a shot.

Jan

[Cereoid-UR12-]

It just seems awful when somebody wants to eradicate a living fossil.

The few remaining Equisetum species have ancestors dating back to long before the age of dinosaurs.

[Cereoid-UR12-]

Are you hallucinating up there in Alaska, Jan? You're trippin', babe.

Raising the pH just might work.

[Etakbear]

Good luck - I've got a mini forest of it just below an old limestone quarry.

[Jan Flora]

Equisetum is in no danger of going extinct in Alaska. It's all over the place up here and probably all across the circumpolar areas of the planet. It's flourishing in my garden right now, but it's easy to pull the mare's tail phase up when I weed.

Have varieties gone extinct?

Jan

[Cereoid-UR12-]

Many species have gone extinct. There were even some species that reached tree-like proportions in the (now extinct) allied genus Calamites!!!

't worry. They went extinct hundreds of millions of years ago. Long before you were even born!!!

There are only about 30 species of Equisetum that survive today.

[vegan]

Off topic sort of....We pay 35 cents apieve for use in cut flower arrangement. That's for each stem!!!

[Etakbear]

Maybe you could become a Horsetail supplier to the herbal trade?