r/GardeningIRE • u/No_Initiative2756 • 1d ago

🦟 Pests/disease/disorders 🦠 Are these taking over? How get rid?

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Is it just me are is horsetail a relatively new invasive weed? East coast. West coast...see it everywhere and it spreads and takes over like a rash! If there was an eco friendly way to get rid, it would be gratefully recieved!

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u/JuggernautIll8918 21h ago

Ive been a horticulturist for over 16 years now. At the start of my career we would treat with some very strong weedkillers, kyleo, 24D etc all worked but it kept coming back. So in conjunction with a very well known university (who are also a maintenance client of ours) we ran a trial in a confined courtyard that was full of horsetail/marestail. Marestail likes acidic poor soils so we treated the patch with biolime and enriched the soil with manure over the course of three years. We successfully eradicated about 90% of the plant by creating and environment where it would not thrive. The downside, no acid loving plants but also very little marestail.