Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Purple Loosestrife

When we bought our place a number of years ago, the only pond on the property had many issues. Too many oversized catfish. Lots of cattails. Awful filamentous algae. Horrendous erosion flowing into the pond. Those have been taken care of, thanks to lots of good advice from Pond Boss.

Something I didn't notice at the time I was fighting all these other issues was purple loosestrife. One day a number of years ago, ESSHUP (Scott) was walking around my pond and enlightened me as to what it was. I'm still fighting the stuff.

After a number of years of fighting the purple loosestrife, I've only gained a meager advantage on it. I've used hand pulling. Last year I took out, and burned, two large 4x8 trailer loads that I hand picked.

My pond banks are much steeper than they should be because I've used my backhoe to dig the stuff out by the roots. The remains (mud, roots, and plants) go into a burn pit that gets burned at least monthly.

I've used Rodeo, but it seems reasonably ineffective. It kills it for a few months or a season, but it always comes back in that same place.

What have some of you done to try and control purple loosestrife?

Thanks,
Ken

Ken, would you believe August 9th it'll be 4 years?

Spray them as soon as they are identified. Preferrably before the flowers are fully developed and they set seeds. If the flowers are in the later stages of development, and seed formation is possible, bend every flower over into a plastic bag and cut off the flowerhead before chemical treatment.

Spot spraying with Renovate, plus an appropriate surfactant will work. Again, mix according to the label.

I'll see what happens. I took the backhoe around the pond one last time, and I yanked out all root structures that I saw.

I didn't get Renovate, but a similar product that includes a non-ionic surfactant. After mixing specifically for purple loosestrife, I didn't need much for those plants a foot or so from the water's edge. I was a little concerned, because my two big horseradish patches are close to where the non-pond edge loosestrife is.

The horseradish is doing great this year, and I sure don't want to kill it off.

I'll let it settle in over the next week to see what it does.

Thanks for the advice.
Ken