well i think i have cattails growing in two dif areas of a pond.they look like cattails , r root based like cattails but they dont have the traditional hotdog lookin thingy at the top. they just started growing this year in the same area generally that i planted some 4 years ago but due to drought i thought they died off. any ideas or are they something else........AND DONT GIVE ME ANY SHIT ABOUT PLANTING CATTAILS

i guess what i wanna know is , do cattails have a phase when they r young that doesnt include the top section, because that is really what it looks like 2 me

They could be young cattails that have not yet flowered. They might also be giant burreed. The burreed has a visible midrib if you look closely while the cattail does not.

I'm actually a big fan of cattails in certain situations. I'm working with some friends who have a very serious FA problem. Their pond's main water source is surrounded by paddocks, pastures, and barns that typically include 20-30 horses. Additional runoff comes through a creek that is polluted from some failed septic systems further upstream. Hopefully they will eventually be controlled by the local government.

This summer, my friends have done very extensive excavating/damming/water-re-routing. It includes natural aeration by bringing water in from a source that provides 3-4 feet of head above its entry point into the pond area. We dammed off the shallow area of the main pond to form a smaller settling and nutrient take-up pond. It is where about 80% of the nutrient laden water enters the pond area.

This smaller wetland type settling pond will be planted with cattails in the next couple of weeks. It is probably about 1/10th acre, but will hopefully become a major sponge for excessive nutrients flowing into two other ponds.

I'm also trying to propagate cattails in three water settlement areas above my pond. If they don't take, I'll start with seed next spring.

JW, the first year cattails started growing on my floating islands they did not develop brown seed heads, only by the second year, so I don't know if this is normal or because of our short growing season.
This year they started growing on my small artificial island, and the same thing happened, no seed heads.

Cattails form their familiar seed head in their second Summer of growth.

The seed head is a marvel of packing them in, thousands of very resilient seeds that birds like to line their nests with.

During Winter these seedheads start falling about in the breeze, carried some distance when the winds blow or the birds drop them along the way

In its second year of growth a cattail might spread 20 feet and form 20 or so plants from its long thick strong rhisome

So if you start with a pretty clump of five, the progression may be along the lines of 5 in the first Summer, 100 (year 2) 2,000 (year 3) 40,000 (year 4) 800,000 (year 5) Where a pond has the space and the fertility to keep them perky

Not forgetting all those l'il seeds drifting about...

Regards, andy

Andy,

Thank you for the outstanding explanation! If I may, I would like to add they have to be one of the fastest growing plants out there. (Vertically) I've cut them off and had them grow what appeared to be 6 inches in 24 hrs.! At least that was the case in my ponds until I pretty much eradicated them.

Cattails are actually used in areas that are heavily polluted to not only remove nitrates, but heavy metals. Some of the parks in Los Angeles have small man made lakes that used to be so polluted that they would not support fish, and water fowl were getting sick. Now with the lakes partially bordered with cattails, and with man made floating rafts of cattails the lakes are able to support fish again, and they are finding the floating rafts are like fish nurseries!

They can grow very fast, but if kept under control they have multitudes of benefits!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typha

Cattails are edible too!

http://www.articlesbase.com/camping-articles/the-cattail-best-of-the-wild-edible-plants-495731.html

The problem is they are hard to control. You guys can keep them. I will avoid them if at all possible.

Ditto!