I have about a 1/3 acre pond that I'd like to add more early season plants. Looking for something that grows early in the spring to help keep the algae and chara from soaking up nutrients. There's currently a little bit of curly leaf pondweed growing in there (I blame the geese for bringing it). I've been pulling it out as I see it but wondering if it wouldn't be a bad idea to let it grow. It seems to grow from ice out to about July around here from what I've seen. Anybody had success managing curly leaf without it getting out of control?

The pond currently has pickerel weed and iris all around the edges. Now that those are starting to grow well (early June here in NY) the algae is starting to disappear and the pond looks nice again. If the curly leaf keeps the algae away until the pickerel weed takes over it might be a good situation but I'd like to hear some more opinions.

I'm also open to other plant ideas. I'm trying to get eel grass growing as well but so far it's been pretty slow going. Spatterdock or water lilies are another idea but not sure how early in the year they start growing to fill this gap of excess nutrients that the algae is currently using. I see the yellow flowers are out in some of the other local ponds around here.