Horsetail: the herb of nightmares
Given the nature of this plant; If it is not controlled in your garden and in the end it will destroy your house.
As I write this, it is the beginning of March and Horse Tail is deep in the ground, enduring its time to erupt and haunt you once again.
Horsetail Common Name: Equisetum
Description: Perennial plant with hollow, jointed green stems and small scale-shaped leaves.
It looks like a small Christmas tree, four to eight inches tall.
History:
You won’t find anything in your garden that has more history than Horsetail.
From what we can tell, these first horsetails were 100 feet tall and covered the earth for 100 million years. Horsetail was part of the Paleozoic forests about 542 million years ago.
The Equisetum family group is perceived as a “living fossil” as they are the only living examples of living fossils.
So how come the ponytail has gone from 30 meters in height to 20-40 cm in height?
The time of the great trees ended an era known as the Permian-Triassic extinction incident. A crisis known as the “Great Death”. This was the largest mass annihilation in Earth’s history.
The event took place 252 million years ago and wiped out 90% of the species at the time. But no, however, Ponytail, which is still going strong.
Soil type:
I met this plant on a tennis court where I saw it grow through the asphalt. This will tell you that HorseTail will grow in a wide variety of soils and not soils, in fact. The plant favors humid soils in general.
The black stems of the plants descend several meters and crawl in all directions underground. The plant is what is called gymnosperm, that is, it does not flower. It spreads by releasing spores that grow in spring.
Let me tell you a story:
My neighbor here in Oxford wanted to expand his house. He couldn’t go up because of the height restriction here in the city and he couldn’t go sideways because his house covered all the ground that he owed.
However, don’t be left behind; decided to go down.
So he dug under his house for about 15 feet. Then he stopped and waited almost a month to decide how to proceed.
It was early summer and when he went back down to his “basement” he saw a small green sprout growing on the ground.
He called me to identify it and, indeed, it was a ponytail, waiting for its chance to grow. I’ve been waiting there all those years in the back of your house!
Disease:
There are none that I know of. Come heat / dry / ice / flood, this plant is still working.
And the reason you are reading this is: how to kill him.
The long and the short is: you can’t kill Horsetail. However, don’t despair because you can control it or at least keep it under control.
What you need is a plan and lots of patients.
Before you start with a plan, you need to understand the composition of the plant.
The ponytail has survived so long because of its structure. It has a layer rich in silica and very small needles like leaves.
This is how the plant protects itself from the outside elements. There is no spray that kills it well.
Horsetail has also become poisonous to eat raw, so grazing animals will evade it.
The plant has a very deep and multiple root system, which makes cultural control methods negligible.
In other words, you can’t dig it up because it’s too deep and the smallest root fragment left will grow into a new plant. Then any method of tillage will multiply your problem.
If you want to use chemicals, there is a product called “Kurtail”. This is sold by a company found on the web: http://www.progreen.co UK phone number 0800 032 6262
There is no chemical or lasting effect on the soil from the treatment. A liter of Kurtail costs £ 20 plus postage.
I’ve seen this used and it took me three days to destroy the plant. However, the ponytail made a comeback the following spring, when you will need to spray it again.
Don’t waste your money on any other chemical. Neither of them work, and that excludes “rounding”
The best time to spray Kurtail is when the plant is actively growing (April-October)
Manual control
Here’s my organic killer recipe: I fill a can of oil with undiluted vinegar and spray the vinegar on the bottom of the plant, right where it goes to the ground, so the plant drinks well.
After two days, the plant is dead.
I have been doing this on my plot for seven years and I find that I can control it. I walk the plot every Friday looking for new growth.
It gets less and less every year.
It is the acid content that makes vinegar useful as a herbicide. Vinegar is a non-selective liquid that can kill any plant it comes in contact with, so be careful which plant it comes in contact with.
If you want to use it on other weeds then go for it because it works so well, however the earlier in spring you do it the better.
Do not think; once is enough. Continue doing it every week for up to ten days.
When vinegar is used, the plant consumes it through the leaves and attracts it to the roots before it attacks the core of the weed and kills it.
When I make a weed spray mix: I use the strongest vinegar I can find and add a dash of magic liquid. I put this in a spray bottle and apply it to weed leaves.
How to wear the ponytail
First of all, be aware that if eaten raw, horsetail is poisonous. If you consume a large amount of this plant, it can lead to a loss of the vitamin B complex, making it quite toxic. The reason is that horsetail contains an enzyme called thiaminase, which can cause serious health problems.
That being said: horsetail (an herb) is being used widely as a medical aid.
You can make a tea with it, and that will help you:
painful swelling
inflammation
arthritis
taste
Urinary infections
kidney cleanse
If you have lung problems such as:
respiratory problems
bronchitis
tuberculosis
asthma
clearing debris that may have accumulated in your lungs
Drinking the tea also helps if you suffer from things like: osteoporosis or weak bones.
The list is endless. Also talk to your doctor before you start drinking horsetail tea.
You don’t have to make your own. You can buy this tea at: http://www.buddhaTeas.com
My own experience with using Horses Tail is:
I suffer from bronchitis (a result of working for years on farms and breathing hay spores)
Knowing the benefits of Horse Tail, I went to a herbalist and he made me a mixture that I drink daily. (5ml three times a day) I have been doing this since 2010.
I can breathe easily and it is certainly better than what the doctor would give me; an antibiotic.
If you want to get rich little by little
Horse Tail has very deep roots and descends to feed on minerals that are not available to other plants.
One of these minerals is gold. However, no one has found enough to make it worthwhile.