The Best Way To Control Cattails Around Your Pond

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Personally, if you ask me, I think one of the charms of a wild pond (even if it’s man-made) is the emergence of native grasses and plants that can come about just because you’ve created a sort of wetland area.  

And nothing seems more natural than cattails near a body of water.

To an extent I love them because they provide a natural beauty or accent to a pond.  They provide cover for fish and other wildlife, and they can help, as grasses to do, with limiting erosion around the pond.  

But like any good thing, cattails can be overdone.  Not intentionally of course.  What I mean is they can grow out in an uncontrolled fashion and become more of a nuisance pretty quickly.

So it’s no big shock when questions come in about the best way to control cattails.

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It’s Hot, It’s Summer, So Should I Treat My Duckweed Problem?

Common duckweed04Really the title of this article says it all.  In the heat of summer, plant life in a pond will grow abundantly.  This can be good or bad, but in the case of duckweed, I have to admit that most people don’t really like it in their big ponds.  

Like it or not, that’s just a fact.  

I’m not insinuating that every single pond owner will want an absolute, pristine, perfectly clear pond where they can see every fish and all the way to the bottom, peering through water that is almost as clear as glass.  No, I’m not suggesting everyone is like this, but in truth, most of us want to see a little bit of the water now and then.

And Duckweed doesn’t always make this easy to do.

It’s a fast growing, nutrient gulping little pod of a plant that will bloom out and cover a big ole pond in a hurry when conditions are right.

And when that happens people (maybe you) have an urge to kill it.

But hold off on pulling the trigger on this plan until after we’ve talked about if first, OK?

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Can Koi Fish And Pond Plants Co-exist?

As many of you know, green water is a common issue in tons of small fish ponds. And one of the best ways I have always suggested to deal with it is with a combination of beneficial pond bacteria and desirable plants. But there’s a problem with this advice, at least where a Koi pond is concerned.

It’s fairly well known and confirmed by many pond owners that Koi fish love to eat almost anything. This includes some of the more desirable pond plants that you’ll find in most water gardens. Lilies, hyacinth, grasses and so on, are often preferred forage material for the usually ravenous Koi. It’s so common an occurrence that many pond owners just assume the you can’t have Koi and plants in the same pond.

But such is not the case…fortunately.

In fact, while most Koi have an insatiable appetite, not all of them will end up eating plants to any great degree. In some cases it may be because they’re more accustomed, happy, and well nourished by traditional fish food. Or perhaps they just haven’t developed a particular taste for the type of plants found in pond. For whatever the reason, it’s simply not a given that Koi will eat your pond plants into oblivion.

But they can…unfortunately.

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Book Recommendation – Encyclopedia Of Water Garden Plants

One of the most often suggested steps to dealing with water quality issues and algae problems in a pond is to install desirable plants like lilies and lotus or a variety of other green goodies. Many natural pond managers will use plants as the mainstay to controlling algae, and while it may take a lot … Read more

Duckweed Isn’t Algae And What To Do About It

It may come as a shock to some but pond algae isn’t the only plant that can take over a pond and make life miserable for the frustrated pond owner.

Of the free-floating plants that show up a lot in the summer, duckweed has to be near the top of the list. This particular growth is not an algae at all but a rooted plant that floats on the surface of a pond and often get’s blown from end to end as the wind dictates.

Many people attempt to treat duckweed with a typical algae control like a copper sulphate based algaecide and find out pretty quickly that the stuff won’t make a dent in the growth. What’s often needed is a form of aquatic herbicide. Even with these it’s best to treat really early in the growth cycle and not wait too long. It get’s harder to control as it goes along.

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