Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Pond vegetation

I have a new .6 acre pond that's two months old in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Before starting to stock I figure there has to be some vegetation (alga whatever) for the forage fish to eat. Since it is a free standing pond I have no feeder water to supply any of this. Should I be doing anything or waiting for Ma nature ??
Mike G at Seville

Mike G at Seville

Let nature run its course. For the most part, your initial small forage fish will only be eating the microscopic forms of life in the pond, not the larger plants. These life forms are everywhere and wont need your help.

Also algae will show up all on it's own if there are nutrients in the water.

Unless you want to establish desirable plants before the undesirables show up, you can just leave them alone.

Search for forums for desirable water plant species.

Mike,

I also have a new pond with no vegetation other than algae. Next summer will be the pond's second year. I am following the second approach Liquidsquid suggests; establish desirable plants before the undesirables show up. Bill Cody was nice enough to help me work up a strategy of what plants to plant for a Northern Illinois pond and I will be executing the plan as soon as the water warms in the spring. My thought is to get the good guys in place and established before the bad guys move in and cause a problem.

Edit Bill D.

Just realized I should have posted what we came up with for me.

We came up with Lizard Tail, Arrowhead and additional beneficial pond plants were all the Sagittaria species, the blue flag (Iris), and water plantain. Additional ones would be the shorter growing Spike Rush. There is an underwater growing Sagittaria called Dwarf Sagittaria that is a very good submerged plant. Some of the info came from an Illinois DNR report that rated plants on how good they are as habitat vs invasiveness, and a lot came from Bill. Your DNR might have a similar report for your area.

Bill D.

Some like the relatively shallow growing underwater floating leaf, longleaf pond weed aka American pondweed (Potomogeton nodosus). Left unchecked it can get pretty 'thick' with dense floating leaf mats from shore out to around 3-5ft deep. Does anyone see it growing deeper than 6ft??? The book says depth of growth is 6 ft but the plants often do not read the book. The eel grass in my pond has almost crowded out the longleaf pondweed. I planted the longleaf when the pond was new buy now after 14 years its occurrence is sparse.
http://www.outdooralabama.com/long-leaf-pondweed
http://www.thismia.com/P/Potamogeton_nodosus.html
https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org/species/potamogeton/nodosus/
http://delawarewildflowers.org/plant.php?id=1567

Long leaf pond weed is about the only Potomogeton specie that is commercially available.

Thanks. I'm off to find the desirable plants.

Bill D. have you found sources for all your plants yet? If so could you send a pm as to where they are available? My pond is currently filling now and I am hoping to get some plants and my forage fish introduced next year if I get lucky enough to get a wet enough winter/spring to bring it up to level. I would assume most plants that will work for you should work in southern IL as well.

Also do you have a link to the report from IDNR that you mentioned?

The good folks at Keystone Hatchery provided me with this recommendation. I haven't checked it out yet.

"If you are looking at doing any kind of lineal footage planting you should look up Kesters Wild game or J and J Tranzplant for bulk ordering. I think there may be a few others around the Chicago area as well."

I don't have a link for the report but if you shoot me an e-mail, I will be happy to forward you a copy.

Email sent! Thank you very much.

Report sent. Let me know if you don't receive it.

Enjoy!

Bill

Got it. Thank you sir!

I'd like to get a copy of the plant sources also..
I'll send you a pm with my email address. My pond is over by Hannibal Mo, not that much south of yours.
I'm going to get plantings in this spring.
I just have basically clay and rock for the pond base, and it's all been Sheepsfoot rolled.
Not sure it would be considered "ideal" for growing anything. Are either of you guys doing anything to prep the soil (below the water surface) for planting?

SetterGuy,

I e-mailed you the report. Let me know if you don't get it.

Enjoy!

Bill

Got it. That was fast.
Thanks

Spring is around the corner so time to start thinking about getting some of these plants started. What water temp do I need before trying to plant? Any other tips? Should I just observe when vegetation is going green and starting to grow in nearby waters and figure I am good to go?

Since you are most likely going to get wet you want the water to be relatively warm.

Good point!

I want to try to get some hardy lilies going this year. They are not inexpensive so I want to plant as few as I can and still have a patch. Do they spread on their own or is it.... what you plant is what you get?

Hardy water lilies spread slow and fast depending on the variety. Generally dwarfs and small types spread slower and large varieties spreading fairly fast. Wild white water lilies spread the fastest by seeds, rhizome buds, and root growth. Since hybrid lilies are fairly expensive I would first pot them in appropriate sized shallow 6"-12" high and a minimum 8x12wxL tubs with garden soil 4"-6" deep. Let them grow it the tubs for 1-2 years then divide the abundant growth and transplant them into the pond or more tubs to get them reestablished before introducing them into the final pond mud bottom locations.

Thanks Bill!

For the DIY potted & divided lilies, survival will be better compared to directly planting bare root lily rhizomes. Be leery of boughten potted lilies because they are likely to have unwanted piggy back plants in the pots. Hardy lilies are usually grown in weedy shallow nursery ponds where piggy back plants and seeds can easily be included in the potted lily. I have always used bare root lily rhizomes from the lily water garden suppliers. Nuisance plants are very easy to get started when transplanting aquatic plants.

Bill,

Have you ever tried potting lilies using a biodegradable pot? The ones I use for my trees take about two years to fully degrade in the ground. What do you think about trying that on a couple? Or if not lilies, some of the other plants I will be planting. I have several different sizes of the pots.

I have never used biodegradable pots in the pond. They could work okay. When I pot lilies I first get them growing in shallow water then as leaves appear and it looks like the lily will continue growing I move the pot deeper as more leaves appear. If you use the decomposable pots and lilies are growing I would make a depression in the pond bottom so the top of the pot is close to the sediment surface. Hybrid lilies will spread fairly slowly if growing in compacted pond clay which is pro and con depending on ones goals.

Bill D. ,

When I started my lilies 3 years ago I needed a lot of containers, like 35 or of them. So I went to the Dollar Store and bought a bunch of clear plastic shoe boxes. I planted the bare roots in the boxes using dirt from the bottom of my pond. I placed the boxes in the shallow part of my pond as Bill Cody instructed me to do and moved them deeper as they grew. During June of that year, I had to move all of them into a mesh pen I made to protect the young lilies from a slime algae problem I was having. The only problem with the shoe boxes is that they are not very big and I had to transplant the lilies to the pond bottom at the end of the summer. Once the lilies start to grow in your containers you can fertilize them with tomato fertilizer spikes.

Good luck!
sean

Thanks for the input Sean. How are your lilies doing?