Is this a horse tail?

[NotMeYou]

I have a horse tail problem and every year this little purple flower comes up and I leave it, but now I'm wondering if it is related to the horse tails and I should get rid of it?

It grows basically right in/next to a little swampy water area.

On a side note, let me know if you know how to get rid of horse tails without killing everything! That would really be awesome to get rid of them.

At any rate, let me know if you know what this purple flower thingamajiggy is.

I attached two pictures of it and a couple of the horse tails I'm battling everywhere.

Thanks for any advice!!

[Silver surfer]

The pink flower is nothing to do with your horsetail, it is Darmera peltata, a bog loving plant.

[Silver surfer]

The only way to get rid of horsetail for good is to move house!! You have my sympathy.

[Ron B]

Giant horsetail can be repressed by breaking the stems off at ground level as they appear.

[lorax]

Yes, but that's repressed, not eliminated. You have my sympathies, and a second on the Indian Rhubarb id for the flowering plant.

[NotMeYou]

I go around and pop out the shoots as they come up as low as I can...hopefully getting them to come out of their little socket at the main vine root. I have to say the vine root under ground is actually very freaky looking. I yank those out when I can get to them too.

I was thinking that if I had some form of syringe or long spray tube (that had some strength so I could poke it down into the open "wound" I leave when I yank out the shoots that keep popping up) I could "inject" or spray some form of poison into the it hitting it right at the spot where it tries to get food and hopefully taking it out one shoot at a time?

Would this work? What should I use in my syringe thingamajiggy?

I read up these and they are one of the oldest plants on the earth!! Millions of years and waiting in my yard. Sigh. They grow a few inches unless they are in my Rhodies and then they grow like 10 feet!!! Crazy!

Thanks for any suggestions!

[KarinL]

Yanking at the root may actually increase infestation by creating new bits of root that grow.

Is this maybe one of those weeds that subsides in the presence of fertilizer? Might try that.

I just found one site - http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/horsetail.htm
- that says glyphosate may work.

[Ron B]

I have found with giant horsetail on damp soil that breaking off the shoots does knock its sprouting back for some time. Field horsetail on ordinary soils appears to be a different proposition.