35 miles SE of London this abhorrence, Equisetum Arvense, terrorised me over 3
years until last summer. It got to a point that I was having dreams about
trying to get rid of it. I didn't know what it was called until now. I think
I'm rid of it now... at least I've not seen it since July last year anyway. For
the first couple of years I was ripping holes in my lawn to get the roots out,
pulling as gently as possible to avoid the root breaking. I'd have between 5-10
new shoots appear every few weeks.
Then last year in April each time a shoot
came up I would take about a 100mm length of a 6-7mm wide green straw (from
Starbucks), gently press the leaves to the stem and lower the straw over them.
Doing this repeatedly, with my girlfriend saying I was nuts (picture a lawn with
5-15 100mm green straws dotted around 2m2 patch), seemed to stop it
appearing over the past year. My hope is that what I did drained it of all the
nutrients that it needed to regrow.
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