I have been, once again fighting the losing battle of removing Mare’s Tail from my garden/paved areas. At the moment I am having to do this several times a week. I thought I would post this to warn anyone buying a property that if they see this, run for the hills.
It may look fairly harmless but it is incredibly invasive and as far as I can find out, impossible to control/kill. The next pic is of the slabbed patio next door, the house is unoccupied atm so this is this year’s growth, it dies down in winter, so this is around 4 months unchecked growth.
I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. I have tried everything on the market. They kill off the growth above ground, but not the roots. I have spent hundreds on weedkiller.
We have the demon stuff at our house. We knew nothing about it when we moved in as we bought the place in November when it was dormant. Come the spring the following year the gardens were full of it.
There’s feck all you can do about except keep pulling it up.
It specialises in a mix of difficult ground conditions - typically (but not exclusively) soils that are poor in nutrients, toxified (salt, heavy metals, &c), and which are prone to be waterlogged (seasonally and/or due to clay).
It relies on that flip-flop of unfavourables to outcompete other plants. If you improve both drainage and soil quality, other plants will displace it. It comes-up in our paddock in bad years, but the nettle ‘crop’ displaces it in better years…
Otherwise, enjoy the fact you’re home to a plant that’s much older than the dinosaurs (this MF is a survivor!), and which is a major constituent of the Coal Measures - where its ancient ancestors grew 100’ tall!
Has that cleared it? A good mate (landscape gardener) is something of an expert on weeds. He told me that there are instances of MT roots being found underground in Yorkshire mines. He says we’ll never get rid of it.
As Maureen says, it’s a survivor.
