paghat wrote:

There's really not much you can do about horsetales. Keep pulling as much
as you can so it doesn't squeeze out wanted perennials, & otherwise
consider it lucky it's handsome looking stuff. Its deep rhizomic root
system, however, travels throughout the neighborhood as a single gigantic
plant erupting here & there along shoots. All you can pull out are the
shoots. Because all the plants for several blocks around are really one
giant plant, it can repair itself wherever it gets torn up or poisoned or
where it gets droughty, nothing phases it permanently, wherever it's at it
stays.

In general a swamp plant but I have it growing back under the eaves in an
absolutely dry location; it could be bringing water to itself from blocks
away, its deep rhizome easily crossing under multiples of sidewalks &amp
roads.

I've found it's controlable insofar as pulling it out now &amp then keeps
it from crowding out perennials & it's not too often it needs removing;
but it is always present in a couple locations providing ferny texture to
the garden. A serious chance to get rid of it would require an entire
neighborhood to poison it at regular intervals & after two or three years
of not giving up, there wouldn't be quite so much around.

-paghat

Ho on earth do you tell them from a pine seedling? Now I am
worried that some of the "pine seedlings" may be these
things--and I need to get rid of them ASAP.

--
Jean B.