Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Planting American pond weed

I have tried introducing eel grass and American pond weed to my pond and have not had any success as I can never get them anchored to stay in the bottom. I have tried several methods, wading in and planting, using the wrap around weights, and taking crayfish hole mud and making a ball around the roots to toss in the water. Does anyone know of a way to submerge the plants to the bottom with out going into the water ? I have all kinds of lilies which are thriving but not plants.

Get a bunch of cheap brown paper lunch sacks. Put the roots in the bottom of the sack, top with clay and rocks, let the plant poke out the top of the bag. Toss in the pond where the plant will get sunlight.

I had pretty good luck starting plants in pots first this year and once we had them with a good root system in the pot planted them in final locations. Final planting locations were wrapped surrounded with 1/4" hardware cloth/mesh to keep the larger fish, crays, geese and ducks off of it.

Turtles will eat most anything.

I think esshup has the right idea. I have planted eel grass, water lilies, etc. using this method. I put the plant and some topsoil in a bag that has been shortened to about 9", covered the soil and roots with sand or fine gravel, stapled the bag shut except where the plant sticks out. Then place it where it was wanted, even in 3' of water. For some, I doubled the bag to make it sturdier when wet. Seems to work.

I talked to two customers where we did the paper bag/garden soil/sand mix method and just tossed them out in the pond. We did that 2 and 4 years ago. Both reported that the plants are established now and spreading like they wanted.

On one pond the customer made PVC cages 4' wide, 8' long and 2' high. I went swimming, put the paper bags in one area, covered them with the PVC cage that had chicken wire on the outside (open bottom) to keep turtles from the plants. Repeated that in another area and we then scattered the rest of the plants in the paper bags around the pond. He said those 2 clumps are the densest areas of American Pondweed in the pond. Both do NOT have TGC in their ponds.

I didnt realize planting that darn stuff was a thing, I got it surrounding my 5 yr old lake and no signs of slowing down.

gehajake - do you have time to go out to the lake for us and measure how deep the deepest growing American Pondweed is growing surrounding your lake? A picture of some of it would also help. Thanks for helping.

Heading out there this weekend to spend some time, I will see if I can get some pictures and a depth reading.

Have fun at the lake!

Hopefully, you and some family members also get a chance to sample and photograph some fine exemplars of your fish population.

That's the plan!