I’m starting to get a fair amount of American pond weed. Just wondering if the general consensus is to let it go? Or try to keep it in a few areas? Cut it out? Or spray it?
Thank you!

American pond weed is one of the good guys. Rarely gets out of control, nice cover for the yoy fish. Heck, I had some planted at my place.

Up to you, but I'd be slow to kill it.

I wish I could get APW established in my pond, so I may be a bit biased. I'd let it go as far as it wants until it starts to hinder my goals for the pond. It's very easy to pull out in areas you want open, one of the best pond plants to have, competes nicely with undesirable plants, and very appealing to the eye.

Is this the pond you put the crawdads in? If so, they must not have over populated as APW seems to be a favorite food for them.

Your APW stands look great!

Thanks, and yes, same pond. We were catching a few crawdads in the traps this spring. We’ve only caught one other one in 7 years, so I think the ones I got from you are doing ok. I think the SMB are probably going to keep them from overpopulating. I was thinking the APW was good to have around. I was just a bit curious as to how far to let it go. I’ll just leave it alone for now.
Thanks! And thank you also anthropic!

If your water is commonly turbid as in the picture the APWeed will not grow very deep due to lack of sunlight penetration. The plant normally stays less than 6ft deep even in clear water. It will make very good cover and habitat for small fish. I would not kill it and a few maybe 3/ac grass carp will help control it however I would not add them until the APW is a lot more expansive. .

I would let it go. I'm hopeful that APW makes a comeback in my pond after being wiped out in the Great Muskrat Invasion of 2020.

I've notice a few little baby plants poking out of the rip-rap, so maybe there is hope.

Glad to hear your craws are present...I just pulled 52 out the night before last and 25 last night (about 200 in the cage now). There's crawdad on the menu for this holiday weekend!

If your APW goes nuts, Augie and I will mail order some from you - lol.

I could use some APW...I'm very short on plants that can grow in a few feet of water (besides the water lilies). In respect of water lilies, mine were the miniatures like you buy at Home Depot and they are now about twenty years old. Until I put them in the new pond, four years ago, they stayed miniature. In the new pond, three feet deep, they grew larger every year and are now expressing pads about eighteen inches across...no where near miniature anymore...but the open flowers run about six inches across, beautiful.

How would be best method for transplanting APW from one pond to another? Does it spread from tubers or seed? Mine is just starting to have the shoots (or are they flowers) come above the water line like the pictures above. I was going to casually pull out best I could into a bucket and throw into my new pond.

Pull it up and transplant to a different spot works good, but don't just throw it in. Take it up by the roots, and shove the roots into the mud in the transplant location.
Or... just collect some mature seed heads and toss them into the BOW where you want it to grow.

APW weed pulls up easily, but minimize root damage by scooping the surrounding mud up with the roots and transfer to a bucket with some water in it. It is highly likely that the mud will separate from the roots during the process at some point and that will be OK. Do not let the bucket of plants and water get hot, try to keep the water temp as consistent as you can during transit. Throwing the plants into their new home MAY work, but they would have a much better chance if they were secured to the bottom of the new pond with a hand full of clay like mud and maybe a rock to help keep them in place. Take a sprig, or two, or three, and make a small clay-like wad of soil (golf ball to lime size) around SOME of the roots and push that into the pond bottom (assuming your pond bottom is rather mucky and loose). The clay wad partially covering the roots will act as an anchor and the exposed roots will be able to contact the more fertile soils to get a good start. If the pond is new and the bottom is still firm-like clay (no stinky muck), you can just hand dig a pocket in the pond bottom and place the root end into the pocket and pack the pocket back with soil you removed from it. Keep in mind that plants like that stinky muck and clay is not the greatest for growing plants in.

We are buying it to plant in our lake along with water lilies. Its a stuggle to get anything to take. Most get eaten or rooted our within days of planting unless fenced.

Bill, thanks for the reply. We just had a pretty good rain so my water was quite a bit less clear than usual. I’ll let the APW go, and see what happens.
Thanks again,
Jeff