Mares Tail is possibly the worst nightmare weed that you can find in your garden. There’s plenty of it here on the Fylde Coast where it grows vigorously – and here are some ideas for getting rid of it.
You might not know what it is, but you’ll almost certainly know what it looks like. It’s most often seen as the short, dark green, fir-tree like fronds that grow in abundance along the edges of garden walls and through cracks in the pavements.
What is Mares Tail?
The weed known as Mares Tail, Common Horsetail, or by it’s proper name Equisetum arvense, is deep rooted and invasive. It does most of its growing underground and across garden and neighbourhood borders. The roots, or rhizomes are very fast growing. The green fir-tree like fronds are sterile – there to photosynthesise and generate food for the plant. It reproduces through separate browny coloured spore bearing stems produced in early spring – and lots of underground runners…
It likes the clay soil and the damp conditions that are generally found on this coastline and grows prolifically. We just don’t like it!
At its worst, the weed can even grow through parts of the footpath, cracking up parts of the asphalt and dislodging paving flags. The roots can go as far as 7ft deep into the ground. They’ll travel into neighbours gardens, and sometimes even right under pavements.
If it’s grown its way into your garden, the chances are it arrived as a bit of root, or a fragment of stem. Maybe in compost or a load of imported top soil or similar. Or it could have germinated from a fertile spore blown over your fence. Just one fertile stalk can produce many thousands of spores. If that’s not bad enough they can survive for a year before growing.
Mares Tail is a perennial plant. Perennials usually die back to the ground in winter and come up again each spring. This pernicious perennial often retains its tough, leathery fronds throughout the wildest of winter weather!
Difference between Mares Tail and Horsetail
Gardeners will generally call the horrible invasive stuff Mare’s Tail. But it’s actually Equisetum arvense – the field or common horsetail.
You’ll find Hippuris vulgaris – common mare’s tail – in the aquatic section at the garden centre. Sold as a pond plant, it’s a very similar but more feathery version. A creeping, perennial herb, whose natural home is shallow waters and mud flats.
Whatever you want to call it, it’s antisocial and a problematic, invasive species. Up there with Japanese Knotweed. But strangely it’s not not listed in Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 as an invasive species. Presumably because the legislation covers non-native invaders like Himalayan Balsam. Even if you don’t mind it in your patch, most of us do. It’s very unlikely that your neighbours would welcome it spreading into their garden!
How to get rid of Mares Tail
Treating this particular weed is a difficult and lengthy process. There are certain things that you can use to start to bring it under control.
Given the depth that it can grow to, it’s a tough job to pull the weed out by hand. However, despite the temptation, try to avoid using a spade or trowel. Hand weeding of a bad infestation can actually make the problem worse. As you cut the stems with a trowel it actually helps the plant to spread even further, from each tiny root that’s left behind.
Where Mares Tail grows in a lawn just cut it into submission with the lawnmower!
The very best thing that you can do is to keep manually removing it – using weedkiller where necessary. Repeated removal of the green stems weakens the plant by removing its food source. It might not die and disappear altogether but persistence will weaken it sufficiently to keep it under control.
If you have a large area with a bad problem a mechanical digger to clear the infestation might be your best bet. Do it before you start landscaping, creating beds and borders or laying paths.
Regular treatment is necessary
The best thing to do where you can is to use a specific weedkiller, and regularly treat the plant. A glyphosate weedkiller will inhibit new growth to some extent. In an area where there are no other plants, use one of the ‘tough’ weedkillers.
It’s not an overnight job and could take a few applications. It may event take a few years. But persevere and eventually you’ll be able to get on top of it. By repeating the weedkiller/mowing/beheading of the weed you’ll eventually weaken it enough for it to die.
It grows extremely quickly in Spring, especially when it’s warm and damp, so it’s best to start tackling it as soon as you see it starting to grow.
Herbicides containing glyphosate are the most successful. They work best if you bruise the weed first by bending and breaking the stems to aid absorption into the plant. Or you can run a rake across them. Adding something sticky to the mix can help – wallpaper paste or washing up liquid. Spot treatments can also be used in specific areas like planted up borders.
Once you’ve treated the weeds, they need to be left alone until the leaves start to turn brown. Then brush it away.
Do your bit to stop the spread of Mares Tail
This weed is very invasive and in some parts of the Fylde Coast it’s a menace. It’s especially prevalent in Anchorsholme, Bispham and Cleveleys.
Mares Tail is a really pesky, unrelenting weed and residents on this coast really struggle with it in their gardens. It also grows widely along pavements and kerbs. You will also see local authority workmen spraying weeds in the worst affected areas.
If you’ve got it growing in or around your property please try to get it under control.
Readers Suggestions for killing Mares Tail
We asked if anyone had any good remedies for this nightmare weed. Have a look at the comments at the bottom of this article for some good ideas, others sent ideas in by email.
Washing up liquid
Darren Chapman from Stoke sent in another suggestion:
“My solution is to use Vitax SBK brushwood. You spray it on using a normal weed killer sprayer make sure you put the water in first then a spot of washing up liquid. Then mix it up by shaking the sprayer the washing up liquid will help make the weed killer stick to the plant. Use it twice a year March-April and second application in October – but don’t use it when rain is forecast.”
WD40 to get rid of Mare’s Tail
Andy Airey from Lincolnshire said:
“My wife and I moved to Lincolnshire a couple of years ago, and our front garden is full of mares tail! You’re right, it’s a genuine nightmare!
“I’ve found that, for the growth coming up through our asphalt driveway, a squirt of WD-40 does the trick nicely. WD-40 is essentially a water dispersing solvent, and mares tail doesn’t manage when the stalk gets eaten away, but no moisture can get in. WD-40 isn’t cheap though. I’ve found the most cost-effective way to buy it is by the gallon, from eBay. That way I also get a hand sprayer bottle to use, and I can control how much I use better than with an aerosol can. (Probably better on the environment, too).”
Wallpaper paste
Norbert Storbeck from FY3 said:
“I think I imported mares tail into my garden with compost I bought from Bristol Avenue when the Council were selling it at half price because I didn’t have mares tail before.
“I read on an American web site where a gardener mixed Glyphosate (full strength) with wall paper paste and brushed it on to the weed. He maintained that the paste kept the Glyphosate in contact with the weed long enough to kill it. I’ll try it this season. I had some success by covering an area with an old piece of carpet all summer last year.“
Brian Watkins said:
“We had a problem at my Church with these which were causing damage to our tarmac paths and car park. I used a proprietary product called PEARL which I have found to be very effective. It’s not cheap – BUT IT WORKS.”
Boiling Water
Linda Davies said:
“I own a caravan on the Fylde coast and this weed grows where I have the plot. A short and swift remedy is to mix bleach and salt with boiling water. Works a treat.”
Have you got any more ideas?
Have you got any more remedies for eradicating Mares Tail?
Here at Visit Fylde Coast we had an especially bad patch of it in our own back garden. Fortunately it was growing in the area which is now covered in an extension to the property, which did for it good and proper!
Over the years we’ve heard about bruising the stems before covering them with vinegar and then salt… and various other remedies. Have you got any suggestions? Have you found any that actually work? Leave a comment below or email your ideas to jane@theRabbitPatch.co.uk
More about Mares Tail
It’s known as a ‘living fossil’ because it’s remained recognisable in the record of fossils over an unusually long period of time.
Dating back to prehistoric times, it’s the only living family of an entire class of plants which dominated forests for over 100 million years. There are varieties of Equisetum all over the globe, except in Antarctica. We think we’ve got problems with it on the Fylde Coast, but in some parts of the world varieties of it can grow to 8m tall!
Did you know: That the spacing of leaf/frond nodes in horsetails, and the fact that they get closer together towards the tip of the shoot, inspired the invention of logarithms!
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