Weed or What????
BrendaW
Posts: 10
Please can anybody tell me if this is friend or foe, it is growing in border at my friend's house and i have only seen it in 1 other garden round where I live, there's a lot of it but it doesn't seem to be spreading into grass verges, i'm totally confused, please help. 
0
Posts
looks like marestail. definitely a weed, been around since the dinosaurs. bugger to try and eradicate.
be pleased it's not in your garden
In the sticks near Peterborough
Oh my god i'll have to look that up fidgetbones thank you so much, it's just so unbelievable i've never seen it before and as nutcutlet says I am pleased it not in my garden, thanks all.
If your friend offers you any plants, make sure you rinse all the soil off, and replant in a pot for a bit, just to check it doesn't have any unwelcome hitchhikers.
My mums been digging it out for 50 years. It even comes up through tarmac.
There is a way to get rid of it with weed killer - tread on it first to bruise the stems and then spray, it has a waxy coating that repels weed killers if its not bruised first. It's had to get rid of completely but it is controlable.
Roots go eway down. Difficult to spray with glysophate as is silicon based and foliage doesn't take up weedkiller unless bruised. Old wives' tale says pick it on Sundays...i.e. keep picking it to eventually weaken it . This is what I do in the one relatively small infestation I have and it more or less keeps it under control. Finally don't compost, bin it!!