In message .com
La Puce wrote:

On 20 Aug, 12:13, John McMillan
wrote:
Marestail + obnoxious weed + allotment + UK = equisetum sp.

Now I'll never forget it, thank you )

Setting aside the botanical niceties, it is WEED where I live in
Forest Hall, Newcastle. Actually a neighbour of mine has let it grow
and completely take over a bed, and in a slightly kinky way it looks
rather nice, like a green animal fur. Then guilt sets and he
weed-kills it, leaving a brown mess. And the same the next year! I
wish he could make up his mind.

But I see it as a weed. I have been in this house 20 months. Last year
I sprayed it with Roundup wherever it came up it and broadly, it
succeeded. Within a week or so it turns brown, and very few new shoots
came up, I squirted them and this year I hardly have any in the beds.
But I hadn't noticed how much horsetail (quiet there, you
taxonomists!) was in the lawn. In any case, last winter I completely
dug up the lawn and also dug in some earth displaced from a building
activity - anyway it was too low in relation to the garden path - and
I reseeded it. This year I saw that a lot of horsetail was coming up
through the new lawn. I tried to be selective in squirting the
horsetail rather than the grass, but there was a lot of overspray and
killed many patches of grass. But I will reseed those patches in the
next few weeks, and I will have a horsetail free lawn next year.

So, I say to you:-

Weedkiller does work!

Persistence pays!

Michael Bell





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