Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Reestablishing Plants

I've posted previously on how I over stocked my 6 acre pond with too many (180) grass carp from 1987-1990. The past several years the pond has had almost no vascular plants to take up nutrients. The result is that the water tends to be murky and green.

I've recently tried to begin remedying the situation by fencing off a small area and planting two hardy water lilies (Nmyphae ordorata gladstonea) together with a few yellow flag water irises. I plan to plant more water lilies this weekend. At this rate though I won't be around to see plants return in sufficient numbers to help clear the water.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can plant? The pond used to have lots of pond weed, native elodea and of course floating algae. I've read here that putting elodea in a pond is a no-no. Here is a photo of what I've done so far. Thanks!

Looks nice, MrSandman. I don't know how prolific those species are, but I'd bet you'll see growth before too long. Bill Cody is quite the aquatic plant expert and may have some great suggestions for you if he sees this thread, and I'm sure he will. Have you considered reading up on water hyacinth? I've read some posts about it here on the forum that talk about it really growing very quickly and being a great cover plant. It sounds like it would require some fairly deliberate maintenance to ensure that it doesn't get out of hand, but it may be something for you to consider.

Hang on for some opinions from folks worth listening to.

Todd, thanks for the reply! Coincidentally I'm now just reading Bill Cody's latest article on hybrid water lilies in the July/August Pond Boss. Looks like I planted the lilies wrong when I dug a slit in the pond bottom and just stuck the plant in the slit. The way he suggests is to pot them first and wait up to 12 months for them to become established. But what would I do with a potted lily when winter comes? Put it in deeper water? Take them in the house?

I was afraid to try the water hyacinths because I thought I read that they'll die when cold weather sets in.

I was hoping I could find a floating plant that I could just throw in the fenced in area with no hassles. Elodea comes to mind but I have to be sure that it's the native variety and not Brazilian elodea or hydrilla.

I haven't read Bill's article yet, but that may be tonight's bedtime fare! I really know next to nothing about aquatic plants (or, really, any plants at all for that matter!) but am trying to start learning more as I'm considering doing a kill off of all the weeds in my small pond and then trying to establish deliberate growth from some good species next year or so. I am not sure, but I think I've read that elodea can be really invasive and is not terribly desirable. Like I said, though, I'm not sure about it.

You'll probably get more good feedback by tomorrow, so grab the latest issue of PB and read it cover to cover tonight!

I have 3 lilies that I potted (actually miniature cat litter tubs), and Bill told me to tie a string on the tubs in the fall, push them into 4' deep water for the winter, and pull them up shallow in the spring.

Wow! esshup, that does make it easy, and we already have the cat litter tubs. Thanks!

Interesting, Scott. Once they are established, I assume they will survive, or do they die off but re-emerge the following spring? Obviously you can't move unpotted lillies like that.

I had 2 plants come back from the dead on my artificial Island, an Iris and Water Canna, they aren't suppose to be tolerent of zone 3 but must be the snow and ice insulated them.

I'm pretty sure once they are established they will survive in zone 5. Bill is just about due East of me, and they survive in his pond. I'm pretty sure that the cover of the latest PB magazine is a shot of the pond closest to his house. It sure looks familiar, I was there around a month ago to meet Rex & Coach B & pick up Tilapia.

Those waterlilies certainly are pretty.

I bought about fifteen varieties of waterlily, both hardy and tropical, and after a steep, expensive learning curve and weeks of nurturing, had them growing well in buckets placed in water-filled drum halves. With happy visions of having a beautiful lily garden in my pond, I put the buckets with plants in the pond before transplanting the plants to the pond bottom. Within two days something had eaten all the plants. Pads, blooms and rhisomes, all gone. Nothing but buckets, dirt, sand, gravel and a pissed-off memory remains.

Rats , beaver , waterfowl or turtles , carp or tilapia ?

Moose eat enormuse amounts off fresh water plants to get natrium, I'w seen them clean out small ponds for water lillies(favorit) in a few days.
Deer also feed on the WL
http://www.squidoo.com/moose_101

Don't be sad, Eric. Instead, enjoy the humor in the irony. My sister could hardly breathe from laughing when I told her the story. It's almost as funny as some of JHAP's misadventures.

As far as I know, the only difference in critters I have now that I didn't have in a different pond I had lilies in is redear sunfish. Of course, in an outdoor pond, we don't ever truly know what we have or what comes and goes. All I really know is that I have something that likes waterlily salad.

Paul, we've always had deer here but I hadn't thought of moose. I'll be on the lookout.

Seems you have an invasiv speicie problem in Louisiana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjejSohX1A&feature=player_embedded

I'm not familiar with it but the same speicie is a considered a problem in Italy particularly water lilies is mentioned, in what I read.
Some links on the critter below

http://www.nutria.com/site.php

http://www.iisgcp.org/exoticsp/nutria.htm

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=vpc6

I prefer the term "learning opportunities."

When I see a Nutria, I think of a Muskrat on steroids. Does Louisiana still have a bounty on them?

Very big rats.

You know I do a lot of water lilies, just potted up 30 today, and will do 40 more tomorrow. I prefer to give them a jump start and some growth both above and below the surface because I have much better results with older established plants. I just plantd over 30 for one customer in the Spring, and the only sluggish ones are the youngest recent barerootstock.

I also had the misfortune of planting over 2 dozen nice older plants only to have a flock of semi domestic mallard ducks eat them up in two days. I could envision Nutria doing the same thing, just a snack for them.

The one lesson I learned was in places you don't know you have to cage them, with chicken wire enclosures or mesh. If the leaves get eaten right to the screen you know you have a problem, but save the plants. Hard to say what to plant if everything got eaten. On that clear pond, there is a lot you can do, marginals and floaters both. I would not do water hyacinth there though. In fact I'd be careful of the lilies as well. Once they establish in a pond bottom and send up a few leaves normally they will make it if the winter does not kill them off. They can usually find a way to overwinter if they are hardies. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? I renovate or reestablish plants fairly often.

Pond Frog, I would hire you in a heartbeat if you were willing, and here in Ohio! You obviously know what you're doing.

I just planted 4 more hearty, hybrid (gladstone) water lilies. I don't have a green thumb at all and frankly I'm lazy, therefore I planted the lily tubers (on a 45° angle) directly in the bottom clay of the pond in 18" of water. Our winters can produce up to 12" of ice so I'm not sure they will make it over winter.

I thought about potting them first and then moving them into deep water in the fall, then pulling them into the shallows in Spring, then de-potting them and planting them in the bottom of the pond after they are well established. All that seemed like too much of a hassle and I figured I would mess up the process anyway.

So what are my chances that the lilies will take hold after directly planting them in the pond bottom?

If I can ask a few questions, what size were the rhizomes and what type of root structure did you have when you planted them? I like the Gladstones, a nice white hardy. They should be good overwinter if they don;t freeze solid, they are hardy to zone 4. How much did you pay for them per plant? Did you get them bareroot or potted? I have to plant 40 more today. Some propagation, many floaters. Almost all whites today. Some huge whites that I have coming up from 9 feet deep in some ponds. And some drought resistant varieities. Also a new one I am experimenting with.

When I plant them in earthen ponds directly in the bottom I usually angle them 45 degrees or so, the rhizome that is. And I also go a bit deeper than I would in a pot. Plus, depending if I am working soft or hard bottom I may place rocks over the top and press them down to keep it from popping. They will float on you in a heartbeat.

Another thing I do is calculate spread and plan for down the road. I will space anywhere from 2-5 plants so that within three to four years they all meet and form one large patch. If I can, I will then take rootstock from the center of the patch, which always fills back in fast and propagate somewhere else. Sorry my pickumup truck only goes 160 miles one way, and I only have a gas tank of range. But I can help you along here for free.

Have you considered other colors as well?

Pond Frog, I went to William Tricker, Inc. in person to buy the water lilies. The company says it's founder was "an originator of commercial water lily culture." Maybe you or others here have heard of them. I feel that they are good healthy Gladstones. I paid $23 each for them. I bought them bare-root. They would have cost more potted, but I didn't ask how much more.

If the rhizomes are those big, fat carrot-like things from which the stems emerge, I think I planted them correctly. They seem to be about 8". I had just read Bill Cody's article where he said to angle them at 45°. I may have to put some rocks over them though. I have a pretty hard clay bottom in the area where I planted them. That part of the lake was scraped clean a couple of years ago and there's no muck there.

Against your advice, I may have planted them a bit too closely together as the fenced-in area is rather small. Incidentally, I also threw in there some bunches of elodea (Elodea canadensis) and hornwort. I've heard pros and cons about doing such a thing but I'm pretty old now and I want to see some clearing of the phytoplankton in my life time. I'll leave it to my children to clean it up if it takes over the lake. A secchi disk disappears completely at 30", not terrible but not as good as it was 20 years ago before I put in too many grass carp.

I do plan to fence in another area and plant some other color of hardy lily as you suggest.

You're a big help to me right where you are in CA. No need to put mileage on your pick up! Thank you!! I'll post a photo showing the 4 lilies I planted as soon as the water clears up a bit more from this morning's heavy rain.

Sandman asks: "So what are my chances that the lilies will take hold after directly planting them in the pond bottom?". My experience is with new lily planters / growers is about 50% success when planting directly into the pond bottom. Some have 90% success rate and other 0% success. It depends.

Survival of a bare root stressed out rhizome (derooted) is it does not take a lot of abuse due to something covering the fragile growing tip either a thick layer of heavy dirt or a largeish rock. Other main things that can affect survival is amount of vegetation (new leaves or buds) at the growing tip and amount of roots (tether and hair) on the rhizome. The more roots the better the chances of survival. As mentioned in my article, planting in a small tub or pot greatly increases survival rate. It may be a little more hastle but at $15 -$40 for each rhizome a little extea hastle is worth it. Not much hastle to lift a rooted lily out of a tub and plop it into the pond bottom.

I figured with your location and Gladstone you went with Tricker. Would be fairly accurate to say they are pioneers in the business. They have an outstanding reputation and if you have been in business for over 100 years you have pretty much seen it all and stood the test of time. $23 is a fair retail price. My average is about $5. But I have some pretty sweet long term connections and propagate a lot of my own.

I would not worry about them being to close together. In enough time it will barely make a differenece if you have had success. Single plants tend to have spread limits, although I have seen that go either way. Depth is more important. I just try to forecast a three to four year growth pattern or growout. I want them reaching each other by then, and that can vary widely depending on numerous factors from hardy zone to soil and pond fertility.

The 45 degree angle is agreed upon by many. I tend to go closer to 90, looking at the rhizome and roots. Going bareroot into an earthen is iffy. You sound like you got clay, which is a big plus. However, planting this late the hardies are getting close to storing or going dormant. And you just don't know what type of fertilization you have. They really need a boost upon transplanting. I tend to use two sizes of rock. But nothing bigget than 1". Just a few of them. Keeps fish from rooting around and hopefully lily from popping out, which they naturally do. Something else the clay helps with, besides bonding soil to the roots.

I really try to pot up my bare rootstock for many reasons. For one, I make my own soil. Lately I have been going with a red clay touch of sand from an irrigation ditch bottom 50% with an old beaver pond black bottom clay. Stuff is really sticky, and loaded with readily available nutrients. I add in 5-1-1 fish emulsion I can get bulk. The soils are free, but a load of hard work. It's worth it. I get transplant shock quite often, not much you can do. They are being broke off, yanked out of soil and water, bagged up and flown out to me quite often. I have close to 100% success rate on survival potting. Where this gives you an advantage on planting directly into eathern ponds is the rootstock has a known abundance of nutrients, and the soil has bonded to the rhizome and roots. Also, the entire root structure is protected in a dense covering of soil, and limits damage and stress just popping that out, and into a new hole. My goal is to get at least a few months in a container. The bigger the container the better. I use a lot of Killen and Cal Pro pots I scrounge for free. They last multiple plantings. Without the UV breaking them down they don't go brittle. I rarely have a misfire going from container to earthen, on bareroot, it varies. When I plant for my own, I gamble, for customers I go from container. You can also leave them in a container and sink those. That really slows down the spread and protects the roots. Eventually they will jump and or burst out anyway. Off to cut the coon's tail. Thanks for the photos and write ups.

Thanks Bill C. and Pond F.! Here is another reason I just took a wild gamble and planted directly into the clay bottom: I have grass carp roaming out in the lake. I have only a small fenced in area to work with where the GC can't reach. If I used potted plants, how would I be able to put them into deep water for winter? It would mean going outside the protected area. The pots make the plants taller and therefore they would need to go into deep water. At most I have only 2' deep water inside the corral.

Another reason for my direct-planting gamble is that I don't have a soft muck bottom. When it comes time to de-pot the plants and put them into the soil, I would have to dig a hole for them in the clay anyway since there is no muck I could sink them into. I figured I would probably mess up that procedure too.

Should I fence in a much deeper area then use potted lilies until they are established? Maybe that's the answer. Tricker's will pot them for me. Then I wouldn't have to worry if I'm using the correct soil.

Here is a photo I took this morning of the corral. The 4 lilies I planted the other day are in the deepest water next to the fence. The two sickly looking lilies to the left I planted (incorrectly) three weeks ago. You may spot the elodea and hornwort I threw in too. Thanks guys!