Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Ohio pond plants

I drove around today looking for some wild plants for my pond.I found what I believe is called a yellow pond lily.I also found some other type of lily in a local lake,it had purple to green leaves and stems with a bright purple flower.Both of these plants are growing wild and survive our winters.Would these make good pond plants for fish cover and shade?....Joe

All right!!!After not getting any responces I did some searching in old threads and see that most people don't reccomend either plant because of how they spread.Can these plants be controlled by pulling the tops off off if they start spreading to far?My pond is only 1/4 acre in size....Joe

Joe, without a proper identification, answers can be tough to come by. The biggest concern about plants is not whether they will survive but is how invasive they can be in smaller water holes.

Joe:

I believe both of those plants are considered invasive. Take a look at Spatterdock and White Water Lily. Anytime you see the phrase "often form dense colonies", I'd be careful.

Look here for pictures and identifications.

I have both in my pond, and each stand is about 5' in diameter after 2 years. I know that I'll have to start controlling them next year to limit their spread. They were in the pond when I bought the house, and survived the pond renovation in 2008 even tho I didn't try to avoid them.

Joe -
I would avoid putting those in your pond. There are a lot of safer water lily selections, mainly hybrids, that don't have quite the invasive nature others have.

There was a recent article in PondBoss Magazine about water lilies. It would really shed some light on this topic for you. If you are not a subscriber, I encourage you to consider becoming one. Also, you can purchase the back issue covering the water lilies.

Do a search of plants for ponds or good plants here. There has been good discussions of which plants are better in ponds and some of them can be found wild in Ohio ditches, lakes & wetlands. Remember all plants spread but some spread a lot slower than others. My philosp[hy is, if I am going to have weeds at least they should look good. If you have trouble with finding good plant topics let me know.

I discussed spatterdock lily and other problematic types of lilies in the Mar-Apr 2010 Pond Boss mag. Part 2 of beneficial water lilies for ponds will be in the Jul-Aug PBoss mag. Sometimes it is better to just buy, usually at nominal cost, known species of plants that are beneficial for your pond, esp a small pond less then 1-2 ac. I learned the hard way that the cost of a few nursery plants is low compared to the cost of time and expense of killing and weeding a nuisance, rampant plant that was "free".

Thanks everyone.The yellow flowered plant is spatterdock.I am not sure what the other purple to red flowered lily is.It is easy to see where they are growing that they are both invasive.Maybe I will just buy some plants...Joe

Since I now have a little more time, I was able to look through some past posts about bneficial plants for ponds. Check out this link to some PBoss Forum posts that has lots of suggestions for pond plants.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=212891#Post212891

By the way Bill, I really enjoyed your water lily article, and I'm looking forward to part 2. Nice job man!