Hello, I have a 5 acre pond that recently had an overflow pipe rust through and fall off. This caused about 4 acres to drain out. I am having a new pond siphon pipe installed on the levee to replace the old vertical overflow pipe. The pond at its deepest point was about 14ft. and gets pretty shallow around the edges due to silt. The pond is over 20 years old and has quite a bit of silt. The drained portion was still too soggy to get equipment into the pond, so I chose to have a super long stick excavator go around the periphery removing silt. The 4 acres that was not drained but still soggy has weed growth throughout.
I need advice on two issues:
1)does the weed growth have to be removed before the pond is allowed to fill? Will the water kill it? Will a couple more frosts kill it?(im in Lousiana) or should I spray as far out from bank as I can with herbicide?
2) I have several tall dead trees on the property. Some are 40 plus feet. I was going to have them cut and placed in the pond. Will these trees float up once the water slowly fills, are are they heavy enough not to weigh down. The trees are dead hardwoods.
Thanks