ID please. Is it a weed?

Hi @samaus I'm not that great at identifying weeds but I'm sure one of the other members will be along soon to help you.. Maybe @Zigs @shiney or @wiseowl may be able to help... @Anthony Rogers is also good at ID's

Just my guess but it doesn't look like a weed to me, will be interesting to see what the other members say

 

I've had a look and it looks like something I do pull up but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called.

 

Looks like Mugwort, but did I notice you're on the other side of the planet to us when you joined?

 

Hi I'm new to this and gardening! Can someone tell me what sort of weed this and how to get rid of it?

Sorry if I'm doing this on the wrong chat I just don't now how to start a conversation!

 

Thank you so much. You have been so helpful I think I will just do the same once a week patrol! I don't really know anything about garden chemicals so will stay clear of them for now but thank you very much for the detailed explanation I really appreciate you taking your time to inform me

 

I am from Aus but I'm England now doing some gardening. I am tidying up some garden beds that have been left for a while so have some mature weeds in them. Wasn't sure on this one but I think I'll pull it out! Thanks for the help!

 

from an Australian point of view, I guess most plants look like weeds...

 

Sorry Miraflores,

I don't get what you've said. Do you mean that all the beautiful plants from Australia are weeds or look like weeds ?

 

I mean that they have beautiful plants and flowers there

 

I find horsetails fasctinating. Like you said, they're one of the oldest weeds on the planet. Can't find my weed bible but from memory, they have remained largely unchanged for something like 400 million years. They have such an effective and persistent root system that they don't need to evolve.

As you'll know, they are a nightmare to kill off because of a waxy-like coating and most weedkillers just drip off but there is a company called Agrichem that sells a product called Kaskara which definitely kills them off as a guy I know has used it with great results, but it's nearly £60.00 for a 1L bottle!

Your war of attrition against them is also a good method as they can't last forever without photosynthesising if the tops and immediate roots are pulled up as soon as they appear.

One thing from my book also says... whatever you do don't use a weed burner on them (which would be futile anyway) as it makes them grow even faster. It's probably because natural fires were a lot more common 400 million years ago and it assists their reproductive cycle.

I forked out a 3 inch high horse tail in a garden today that had none last year. The road behind is infested with them, even coming up through the tarmac so I expect some spores have been blown over and taken hold. I hope to God my diagnosis is wrong otherwise her borders will be trashed as it's a once a fortnight job and full of nice shrubs, small hedges and perennials the customer planted when she was more able bodied.