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.