"alanbrook" wrote on 22nd June:
Hello Everyone
Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
First off, I will admit to knowing nothing about gardening.
We bought a house with a badly overgrown back garden. It measures about
30ft X 30ft, and was a mixture of rotten sheds and weed filled dying
grass. I have cleared the sheds, and removed the old turf, which has
left a hard clay base and areas full of sand. We went off on holiday,
and came back to a sea of ivy and horsetail. Roundup and Weedol dont
seem to be eradicating the horsetail.
I want to lay new turf and get a decent garden quickly. Should I lay a
weed membrane, then a layer of topsoil and then the turf on top? Or can
you recommend something better.

I've seen it said that you have to crush horsetail a bit before you put
weedkiller on it, because its leaves are coated with silica and shake off
weedkiller if left intact. Either trample it down thoroughly or beat it
with the back of a rake. After that, glyphosate weedkillers such as Roundup
are best, but you'll have to repeat the whole process when new growth
appears. This will probably happen several time before it admits defeat.
Yes, horsetail really is that tough.

If you don't want to slosh all that weedkiller around, repeated mowings are
also supposed to work, although that might take slightly longer. If you've
more or less cleared the other weeds, I suppose you could try cutting off
all the horsetail, laying new turf on top and mowing the horsetail along
with the grass until it gives in. Being thin and green it shouldn't show
too much in the meantime. I should warn you that I've never tried this.

Best of luck!

--
A. B.
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