Snake Grass Remedy?

[MikeyS]

Hello, new member here. Does anyone have an effective natural remedy to get rid of snake grass? Vinegar works well but temporarily, and you can't just weed it out because it spreads from the picked root (forgot the fancy multi syllable name for it). I have sandy soil which it appears to like and don't want to use herbicides. Thanks in advance.

 

[MikeyS]

No one?

 

[YumYum]

Are you talking about a whole yard or a small patch in your garden? The only thing in your parameters I can think of is to put plastic over it for awhile so it dies back. Then I'm not for sure it wont come back. Maybe you can salt it at the same time so the roots have to pull in the salt trying to survive. This would probably work better in warmer temps.

I have some johnson grass that I've sprayed with roundup, spectracide, vinegar, bleach, and burned with fire. It comes right back.

 

[Sheal]

Welcome MikeyS. I'm not familiar with the weed you have, but a friend has told me recently that using a steam machine to kill weeds is popular in Sweden - and it works.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

It can take a while for people to catch on. I am from the UK and have no idea about 'snake grass', but my experience with weeds generally is that there is not a remedy or solution for them. They are taking advantage of man losing the trees and can adapt to what he does to defeat them, I may be wrong, sometimes there is something, like get a goose, or a tortoise. I do hope so, but my guess is even if you got rid of it all there would be something else. The wild is like that, it creeps in.
And while I wrote two caught on

 

[MikeyS]

Guess this will force me to get innovative. I've gotten nothing off the web, so was hoping for some off the wall tricks from hardcore gardeners, which I am far from.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I wondered about 'snake grass' and looked it up, now I understand, this is what we call 'horsetail', a real pig of a primitive plant. The reason it keeps coming back is that there is a really deep main root, when you spray with weed killer it kills off the shoot , but not the main plant. It does weaken it a bit though, so if you keep at it, hitting every new shoot as it comes, you do get it in the end. One really good idea I saw was cutting the end off a large plastic drink bottle, popping it over the shoot, and spraying in through the neck of the bottle. You won't accidentally spray nearby plants, and you will know which you have and haven't sprayed.
It requires persistence over a long period to eradicate, and you might run into problems if it extends into neighbouring properties, but even then you should be able to control it.

 

[MikeyS]

I wondered about 'snake grass' and looked it up, now I understand, this is what we call 'horsetail', a real pig of a primitive plant. The reason it keeps coming back is that there is a really deep main root, when you spray with weed killer it kills off the shoot , but not the main plant. It does weaken it a bit though, so if you keep at it, hitting every new shoot as it comes, you do get it in the end. One really good idea I saw was cutting the end off a large plastic drink bottle, popping it over the shoot, and spraying in through the neck of the bottle. You won't accidentally spray nearby plants, and you will know which you have and haven't sprayed.
It requires persistence over a long period to eradicate, and you might run into problems if it extends into neighbouring properties, but even then you should be able to control it.

That's a great idea. Taking it a little farther, perhaps digging down far enough to find the main root and use the same straw method to deliver the payload. At the moment a lot of it has splayed out as it infamously does, hoping for a warmer weekend to tackle it before the snow flies.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

To problems with that, it grows very deep roots, it would be a lot of digging. Also I am pretty sure that it is one of those horrid plants where if you knock a piece off a root you start a new plant. Maybe best to stick to killing regularly on the surface.

PS, if you put 'horsetail' into search there are other threads about it.

 

[MikeyS]

To problems with that, it grows very deep roots, it would be a lot of digging. Also I am pretty sure that it is one of those horrid plants where if you knock a piece off a root you start a new plant. Maybe best to stick to killing regularly on the surface.

PS, if you put 'horsetail' into search there are other threads about it.

I suppose that once everything else is dead I could always try blasting....

 

[Sheal]

Horsetail roots can grow to a depth of 6ft or more so not really possible to dig them out. Using a herbicide is probably the only way you will get rid of it and you will need to use a systemic weed killer. Oliver's idea below is good...

One really good idea I saw was cutting the end off a large plastic drink bottle, popping it over the shoot, and spraying in through the neck of the bottle. You won't accidentally spray nearby plants, and you will know which you have and haven't sprayed.

 

[Chuck]

I have never had the stuff but people I know have. One person, in particular, tried everything, digging and herbicide use. He tried glysophates to no avail but finally used a 2-4D product which did kill it. I believe it took about 2 years.