Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Good Pond Weeds?

I'm looking for any thoughts and experiance on good plants to add to my pond. I need everything, submerged, emergant, marginal, and surrounding grasses. I have little topsoil and no silt to work with. To date I have only had 1 plant emerge, an Arrow Alum.

I want to be able to bank fish but controllable dense stands would be ok. Im looking for shorter plant varieties. All of the info seems to be on what to keep out of the ponds. Lastly, where to buy any plants would be a huge help too. I included an airial veiw of the pond that shows the dead areas. Full pool will be about 4 acres and the pic shows it at about 1/2 full after some dam work.

Thanks for all the help you guys have given me to correct the mistakes I've made with your incredible experiance. Hope I can get some answers again!

Rex

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Rainman, I'm still too much of a rookie to offer much advice on plant species, but I had a very good experience with Spence Nurseries http://spencenursery.com/home.html. The web site says they sell wholesale only, but if your order is large enough, they will sell retail also.

I sought them out initially to purchase a prairie seed mix for a 4 acre plot. While there I picked up some flats of water willow and pickerel weed. They were very high quality plants. Once I got the plants home I realized I had thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of water willows already growing around the edges of my pond. It would have been pathetic of me to have bothered with more plantings so they went to waste, and I learned an expensive lesson about plant identification. From previous posts, I'm lead to believe pickerel weeds are not too invasive and add early season color.

Oh, I had great success with the seeds I planted last spring for my meadow of warm season grasses and wildflowers.

Thanks Schroeder. They have a lot of good info on that site, but the prices are scary. I think I'm going to learn how to identify some plants and try to get them from the wild. I think I like the pickeral weed and dwarf sagittaria. No doubt I am going to have to look into the W.H.I.P. program and some state cost share for any grass/wildflower restoration.

Thanks again Schroeder

I'm a big fan of water willow.

Water willow looks like the same plant I see growing in the rivers I fish (Susquehanna, Potomac, etc).

Is it hard to control?

RobA -

I find water willow all over the bank areas of the cold water creeks and rivers in the Ozarks as well as on the banks of the Missouri River. I'm not sure of the distribution, but I imagine it probably grows in your area as well... and it is likely what you've seen on the rivers in your area.

From my experience water willow spreads fairly slowly and is pretty easy to control, and it provides some excellent cover for fry close to shore. It is also considered to be a good erosion prevention plant, and it will compete well with chara in the shallows. My guess is that it would also compete well some of the other less desirable plants, helping to keep them in check.

I fish a lake in NW Missouri that has some growing in a few areas, and it always seems to be a fish magnet.

I have recently read several studies that are encouraging in regard to the plant. In the studies, they introduced the plant by planting plugs. The results indicated greatly increased recruitment of fish. Particularly, one of them noted substantially increased and more consistent crappie production.

I'm actually planning on adding some water willow to my 12 acre pond this spring.

I also love water willow. It's easy to transplant. The nice thing about it is that it will only grow in shallow water. If it takes up too much space for your liking, it reponds well to chemicals, but it is very easy to manually remove.

Blue flag iris is also a nice shallow growing plant. I've even used a plant called sweet flag. It looks like a cattail, but it doesn't grow very tall. In fact, you can cast over it. This particualr plant smells like juicy-fuit gum if you snap the stem and smell it. If you lick it, then you'll go on a mind trip that would make Jim Morrison proud. I'm just kidding. I've never licked it, and I have no idea if it will alter your mind.

Shawn actually gave me some valuable input when I was researching water willow a while back. He's worked with the stuff, so his info comes first hand.

I like Flag Iris also. It doesn't really spread (almost no need to control), and if you want more, just dig a healty one up and chop a node or two off the tuber and plant them. You get the bonus of some really pretty flowers too (blue or yellow, depending on variety) for a little while each year. I have some flag iris in my pond. I also grow it in my garden/goldfish pond in pots. Good stuff. Good plant to put on the dam as it doesn't send out deep roots, will crowd out less desirables (when planted densely) and will help provide a nice natural erosion barrier.

Sweet flag is good stuff too. I really like the look of it. If you like the cattail look, this may be a better (far less invasive) alternative to actual cattails.

"Dude, pass the sweet flag."

Shawn, Weissguy,

Thanks, I think I'll try out your suggestions.

The Iris are really nice. I think I may try some dwarf sagittaria as well.

Rainman -
I only know of sagittaria used as an aquarium plant. It shoots out a lot of runners in an aquarium environment, so I wonder if it might be a little too aggressive in a pond.

Rainman & Weissguy,

You guys should check out a plant called Thalia dealbata commonly called Thalia. It's a really cool plant that does well along the shoreline. It grows slowly in Missouri so it is easily controlled. I've seen in planted in two ponds. It is pretty impressive.

The genus Sagittaria contains lots of species. The pond/wetland varieties are more commonly know as arrowhead or duck potatoe. They stick to the shallows along the shoreline. I really like arrowhead for the same reasons I like water willow. The plants I'm referring to are easy to control. You can get them for free if you look around roadside ditches. They area also realyl common in a lot of ponds. Easy to transplant.

You guys should check out a book called Water Plants for Missouri Ponds. You can purchase it from MDC. It contains about 150 pages and has line drawings and some good color photos. One of the authors is James Whitley who is long retired from MDC, but he propagates and sells many types of aquatic plants. The last I knew he was living around Columbia, MO. Perhaps an internet search would locate him? He'll talk your ear off about plants and would be a good source for other plant recommendations.

Thanks Shawn, I'll check out the info and try to look up Mr Whtley. I grew up 20 miles from Columbia.

Weissguy the sagittaria I like is an aquarium plant but only gets about 4 inches tall, kinda like zoysia grass. Some black plastic will control/kill it if needed.

Shawn,

Weissguy has Thalia, Blueflag, Sweetflag and Pickerel weed in his pond (I guess you know where it came from). He just need to wait and let it fill in (as long as the water says near the current level). There is one submerged island on the east side that would be a good place to start water lilly.

Scott

A good pondweed is a dead pond weed!

LOL! I agree CB1. I made a poor choice of words and I couldn't edit the title. It seems to have gleaned some good info though.
Maybe i would have gotten even more if I'd asked about good pond weed to smoke........but not inhale of course.

A-hem!

Of course there are pondweeds that are beneficial and won't take over your pond in short order but I haven't found too many with the heavy nutrient load in my ponds due to heavy feeding.

Chara has it's good points but it goes nuts in my ponds!

Would a submerged island be able to keep water lily from spreading to the rest of the pond as moryan suggests? How deep can they grow, and consequently how deep would the surrounding water need to be to contain the plant?

Dan, I have a couple submerged islands. I think the normal depth for most lillys is about 4' with a 18" secchi reading. Clearer water and they can come up from a LOT deeper. I have a tubidity problem as I have good sealing clay but it likes to suspend so I plan on putting lillys on the islands this spring. I also found on ebay packs of 500 tropical lillys and lotus that won't survive winter that I plan on planting as well. It blows me away that it costs me $9 to ship a package across town but he can ship his seeds half-way around the world from Thailand for $5. BTW the seeds were $2.

Be careful you don't get the yellow water iris that grows about 6' tall. It starts kind of slow but will spread spontaneously and is somewhat hard to kill out with herbicides. The Louisiana swamp iris family is really large and has some terrfic looking members like the Black Gamecock which is almost a black bloom.
Pickerel weed is a super choice and blooms all summer, not invasive. You can easily make starts of any of the maraginals in half barrels-I use a cleaned up plastic chemical drum sawed in half length-wise (for greater surface area). Put some decent soil in it and slide into the water's edge until just submerged.
Leave a rope attached. Plant with desired marginal plant. It will soon fill out the barrel and you can retrieve it out of the water for getting easy to reach transplants.

Everyone tries herbacides to kill the plants. I have found one of the best methods to kill most unwanted plants is by simply layin black plastic over them and sinking it around them for 4 or 5 weeks.

I have Dwarf Sagittaria. It's been in for 2 yrs. My only complaint, it doesn't spread fast enough!
I would be very careful selecting water lillies. Some can be VERY invasive! I have 15 different variaties in my pond. I suggest buying from someone that knows the plant & it's growing charateristics. Here's where I get mine: http://www.members.aol.com/abdavisnc/swglist.html
Andrew used to post on PB, don't know if he's been around lately.

Wow Ric, I thought this thread died ages ago.

I never got the lillies in, but all the varieties are tropical natives to thailand and none are hardy. I put several sprigs of the drarf sagttaria subulata in my aquarium but the tilapia ate $50 worth in under 2 hours, so that was a bust.

I think I may have to turn off my aerator for a year or two to allow some muck to build up. I have no topsoil around, only red clay and not much likes to grow.

I am thinking about putting some lilly in our pond some day. I read and cut and pasted some of the lilly stuff from here on Pond Boss into a word document that I keep for future reference.

Based upon what I have read Andrew really knows his lillies.

Thanks for reminding me about this again.

Hi Rainman:

I live on a 10 acre, 8ft deep swimming lake (former gravel pit). Al our submerged vegetation was killed by lousy treatment company, we had the lake choked out with curly-leaf pondweed. We want to get the good plants going again, and our research is leading us towards getting the Chara back again (filters and cleans the water) and would like Sago, American or Illinois Pondweed growing out in the middle.
I planted a buffer zone this year and find that everything grows in the sand. I am told Rushes and Sedges are good emergent plants along with Pickeral weed, but every region of the country is different, some things in the north aren't good in the south.
Have you contacted the Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Foundation, or the Aquatic Plant Management Society? You can find them on the internet. Here is a native nursery that sells to the public: JFNew Corporation, in West Olive Michigan, and Ann Arbor Michigan. You have to get the Pondweeds from them early in the Spring, and they have starter kits of emergent plants as well, and can ship them to you. They have a nice catalog. They also provide restoration services as well.
Lynda

Thanks for the info 2cat! I will check out the native nurseries.

Unfortunately, the 2 societies you mention are about the control of invasives----that info is everywhere. What I am looking for is info on DESIRABLE plants. There is an INCREDIBLE lack of info on THIS subject!

I would love to establish a buffer zone. But in the Missouri Ozarks, the predominate soils are, 1) ROCK---2) CLAY, 3-4-5) ROCK, Oak Leaves, & MORE ROCK! Unless I spend tens of thousands on trucking in top soil to plant buffer strips, my pond will continue to be muddy and completely void of vegitation.

Rainman:
But, another plant that JF new has is Wild Celery, Ellgrass. Have you seen the floating islands? Floating Islands International I think....