Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Best plants to filter water?

My new property has two ponds, small one on top of the hill larger one at the bottom "2 Acres down hill" I live in the mountains so there is a lot of water that comes in to the top and washes to the bottom. Right now there is a sloppy plastic runoff hose that just rushes water down to the other pond. What would you recommend me planting if I re dug the trench and plant to catch and use biological and sediment debris? I trying reduce the amount of muck that washes into the lower pond?

Cattails are a plant most people don't want but it grows together thick and it is mentioned as a filter in some of my readings. A friend had a pond with a creek feeding it, with cattails at the mouth of the creek and although I never looked I suspect the roots and stems had collected lots of mud.

You might try giant burreed.

How giant grasses do in some time wet conditions? I have some very large grasses around my pool area for privacy. I could salsify split them and plant them , just not sure how well they do at filtering water ?

I'm with John on this one...I have cattails at the entry points of the watersheds for my big pond. Both main entries feed from farmer's fields, so there's a lot of potential for silt as well as extra phosphorous/nitrogen/etc. I have large patches of cattails as a 'buffer zone' the first 50-75 feet or so at those inlet points. In just the past 5 years or so I can already visually verify that the silt is being captured by the cattail patches - which means it doesn't go in to the main body of the pond.

With that said, cattails are a giant PITA to keep from spreading. I've spent a good bit of time and expense keeping them from popping up all over.

But they're fulfilling a more important need than the trouble they cause in my opinion.

I agree with using cattails, but you have to be dedicated to keeping them in check. That means monthly cattail eradication missions.

The other plants mentioned aren't as invasive as the cattails, but the downside is they don't do a good of a job filtering the nutrients/sediments out.

Basically it's pick your poison and deal with the bad points.

I could not recommend adding cattails unless you are already infested with them. Its like adding black widow spiders to control flies. I would try to find native non-invasive phragmites first (not the invasive kind).