I am a consulting horticulturist and I deal with horsetails constantly. Pulling does NOT compound the problem as long as you keep at. I have horsetails in my own inherited garden and that is how I deal with them and fairly successfully as well, I might add. The roots run quite deeply and pulling does not remove all the roots. New growth can emerge from these but if you keep pulling ALL the new growth before it develops much height (less than 8"), the plant is unable to photosynthesize and will eventually weaken to the point where it will not return. And only a few of the plants produce spores and only in early spring - they are very distinctive compared to the typical horsetail - and these should be pulled as soon as they appear so the spores do not develop. Most of the horsetails' spread can be attributed to the rhizomes, not the spores. I do this for a living and this is a very accepted and relatively efficient way of dealing with these pests. The lime will have NO effect so save your money and your effort. Horsetails can and do grow in a lightly alkaline soil. Increasing the pH any more than that would make the soil inhospitable to most anything else as well. Any low growing or spreading perennial that shares similar growing conditions will serve to protect the clematis roots. I like hardy geraniums. But unless the horsetails are eradicated first, you will be dealing with these weeds indefinitely. And attempting to remove horsetails from within the root system of an established clematis plant is asking for unnecessary trouble.

Hi RJR1, I donÂt think youÂd be happy with ÂDragonÂs Blood or any of the other sedums. TheyÂre pretty much sun plants, and while theyÂd probably grow in part or even full shade (they grow almost anywhere!) I really donÂt think youÂd like the way they look. Even in sun ÂDragonÂs Blood can sometimes get real leggy looking. I wasnÂt familiar with the other two, so I looked them up. The one you suggested, Bunchberry, might be a possibility, but I donÂt know your soil conditions, so I canÂt be sure. HereÂs what I found. Bunchberry - Cornus canadensis Family: Dogwood (Cornaceae) Height: 3-8 inches Habitat: Cool woods, mountain slopes Shade, well drained sites preferred Cool, acidic soil (ph 3.0 to 7.9) Hardy to USDA Zone 3 Northern North America, south in mountains Southern limit of range may be due to its preference for cool, acidic soils and its inability to survive in summer soils warmer than 65 degrees F. ItÂs definitely hardy where you are! Do you have acidic soil? I wasnÂt familiar with it because apparently itÂs not grown out here because of our warm and very alkaline soil! The one creatrix suggested, Partridgeberry, sounds like a pretty good possibility. HereÂs what I found out about it. Soil Type - Well drained, humus rich, sandy loam Soil pH - Neutral Water - Moist to Dry Light - Full shade Height - 1-2 inches Time of Bloom - June - July Propagation - Division, slow spreading creeper I donÂt know anymore about this one either, but if the fallen oak leaves can stay on it and the birds like to eat the berries, that sounds like a really big plus to me. Since you have a large area, you might want to put in several different things for variety. Hardy ferns could be real pretty too. You also might want to post this on the New England Forum to see if you can find other things that like your local conditions. The things I suggested will grow pretty much anywhere and under any conditions. Have fun making your decision and watching them grow, Skybird

My 'Ginko Craig' grows like gangbusters and is a great ground cover! So does 'Golden Scepter' grow vigorously. Here's GC...pic taken last year. I'm in denial so you'll have to please forgive me for posting non-current growth...I think it's great that some of you "early birds" are sharing your progress - it will carry me and a few others for a couple weeks more....as we continue to wait it out. :-) This post was edited by josephines67 on Tue, Mar 18, 14 at 13:00

wow! Such great advice in no time at all! Thanks so much! As far as actual square footage... we have a 2 acre lot that my husband I battle over every summer. It's turning into a kind of game, well for me anyway... :) He's attempting to plant a small "grass farm" and I'd like to do more "non-grass" landscaping with rocks, bushes, flowers and maybe a bench. So, I get the hills, slopes and other places he has deemed not acceptable to be part of his grass farm. ha. He's really not that bad, but we do go back and forth. I told him not to plant grass along the northern strip where I've planted my 30+ evergreen tree windbreak and he did it anyway so I covered it with weed barrier and killed it. oh - my - gosh ... was I in trouble. You'd think I'd just killed his best friend. Don't get me wrong, I admire his appreciation and love of the green stuff, I just think it has it's place and it wasn't between my trees!! :) Seriously though... I have a 700 sq ft. slope to work with although I don't want wall-to-wall bushes/shrubs as I plan to bring in some rocks and add more perennial flowers, flowering bushes and bulbs to get it as low maintenace as possible while still looking nice. (it partially surrounds the circle drive so it's what people see from the front windows and when leaving) Next I have a 480 sq ft road front to work with that I would like very low evergreen creepers for (80'w x 6'd). The backdrop are huge slabs of sand stone and a hedge of cotoneasters. (just working on curb appeal here) In addition, I need 25-30 individual plantings for spaces between the evergreens to help cover landscape fabric, retain moisture, etc.. 8 of these may eventually be overshrouded by the colorado blue spruce row of the windbreak but that will be awhile from now (and at that point they will be in partial shade) so I'm hoping to do something there that will cover ground now and provide some kind of color contrast later. Thanks so much for all the detailed information! I really appreciate the help!! Happy Planting! Tina