Killing Marestale

kingofbeers

Hi guys. Is there any way I can kill marestale. I’ve tried many different weed killers but still nothing.
Thanks in advance.

macraignil

It used to grow in my parent's back garden fairly extensively. I improved the drainage as it is said to like damp soil and planted lots of strong growing fruit shrubs and herbs that would out compete it and with their deeper roots also improve the soil structure and drainage. Adding lots of horse manure over a few years also helped with improving the clay soil to the point that there is no drainage problem there now. When I lived there while the plants I put in were getting established I simply used a trowel to dig out as much of the mares tail plant as possible each time I saw some. The black underground portion can break up so to follow it back into the ground was made much easier with the trowel. I left the material I dug out on the soil surface to be a mulch and eventually rot down to improve the soil and after a couple of years of this I would find it hard to find any mares tail there now. The density of planting used can be seen in the second half of this video clip.

DarkJ

Boiling hot water (add salt for xtra death) poured over them is the only thing that has worked for me. Costly and time consuming but it sure works. Nightmare of a weed.