Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Deep Water Willows doing well after 2nd Winter

The willows in the 15' to 20' water & have survived well. I am also still not having any problems with any of them trying to start anywhere near the banks from anything floating away. For those that do not know I transplanted some large willow trees into the deep area of my 3ac pond while doing renovations a few years back. Some of These trees are probably between 20 to 25' tall.

Do you know what kind of willow they are? My experience is that weeping willow doesn't spread, or not much. Black willow on the other hand will grow on concrete if you so much as wave a stalk over the top of it. I despise black willow...it's the bane of my existence pond-wise.

Tums, I appreciate what you are doing science wise to further our collective experience on the forum. I personally find this transport of mature willows in deep water ground breaking and extremely valuable information for us all. If for any reason a guy was concerned with seeds spreading he could trim the tops of the trees a bit every year to cut down on seeds dispersing. I wish you could provide underwater shots of the myriad of fish that probably love living in the willows....this is great work, thinking outside the box, and thanks for sharing. Keep us in the loop!

DL I may be mistaken, but I believe these to be Costal Plains Willows Native to this area.

Tee Thanks. You are right about I need to get some footage of them under water. Sounds like something I will do in the warmer water months.

I would have never dreamed of doing something like that. Ought to be fantastic habitat and cover.

In my sons pond that I refurbished he will have one growing in about two feed of water but it grew up there while the dam was breeched and the pond pretty well dry. Makes me wish I would have taken the dozer and pushed it down in the middle of the pond.

Thanks for posting and the picture.

Tums has some cool stuff going on...we need more AL forum members to chime in more often. Just need to hear from them less during football season.

Pretty work. Think I could drive some willow sticks into the mud and have them take root in 6 ft of water? I'm thinking they'd need to be mostly defoliated above the water line to reduce transpiration.

NWFL I do not know if that would work or not. I transplanted mine while the pond was drained and allowed them to take root before flooding them. I think the biggest reason why the have survived well was that the foliation was already established above the water line. These are the tops of the willows sticking out of the water with around 3/4 of the tree being submerged. I do have some that are probably 15' tall in 10' of water. Again all where planted and allowed to take root before flooding.

Thanks to all

When I built my pond in 2011, it had some existing mature willow trees in the draw that I flooded. They had about 4 feet of water on them, but most of the tree remained above the water line. The first two years they seemed fine. Last fall I noticed that a couple had died. Now this spring they are nearly all dead. I enjoyed the cover that they provided for the fish, but I won't miss all the seeds floating in the pond. Tums, I hope you have better luck with yours.

It would be very interesting to video underwater around those. Not only to see the fish, but to also see if the trees have sent roots out all over the place. They may make excellent water-scrubbers, but probably not too proficient as they would need a lot more foliage above the water line to incorporate the nutrients.

DJ that is what I am thinking will eventually happen to the willows. I actually expected it to happen already with them submerged so much. I originally started this for vertical structure in the deeper waters for the BCP.

I will remember that when I go to do it. Thanks for the suggestion.

I was also suffering from this problem, I would like to say thanks for all sharing best suggestion with us.