Has anyone in the South had un-rimmed ponds and no problems with cattails?
Has anyone with rimmed banks had problems with cattails?
edit: Getting back to my original contour design; If I hold water at the high level and I develop cattail problems on the gradual slopes, will the cattails survive a rapid 3 foot drop in water level? Do they begin in water less than 2 feet deep, and if so, how would they do if they were suddenly 1 foot or more above the adjusted water level?
Hi GW,
At the risk of killing your thread I'm going to post.
The guy that dug my pond (before I bought the property), basically did what you are considering. My pond was dug to be 15 ft at the deepest point, at full pool. It's not reached this due to watershed etc.. but holds at 6-7 feet with normal rains. In the beginning I cursed the guy, but now I see his reasoning. The average area is surrounded by a shelf that is at a grade that is comfortable to maintain. My wife is able to mow it with our riding mower and can get right to the waterline. The shelf runs on average a foot or two into the normal waterline, after that the slope is probably 3:1. We don't really have any issues with weeds at the waterline as long as we do normal care. We get a few cattails on a small island that will appear at lower water levels but they seem to disappear as the level goes back up. I believe some of this has to do with the Koi my wife put in; we had more cattails before them. The only pain is the dam itself. The face is pretty much a vertical and a bear to keep up. The backside isn't much better, but I've managed to establish a ground cover on it.
I'm not sure if any of this is a help, or if I'm correct in my understanding of your plan. Below is an aerial shot of our pond at a very low point. The blue line is normal pool, and the red one is what I hope we can get to eventually.
-Tim
