reeds in a pond

king_of_inismac

Hi guys,

A friends has asked me to remove the reeds from his pond. The pond is very large.

I can just go in and pull each reed individually, but its a very large pond, and there are a lot of reeds.

Would anyone have any better suggestions?

Thanks,
Martin

hobie

A word of caution .... :rolleyes:

Do that without hand protection and you will suffer serious damage(and you won't even notice untill too late ) .....

ps. reeds do an important job in keeping the water clean

crosstownk

You will need to remove the root or they will just grow back.

king_of_inismac

I suppose my question is, are they deep rooted. There are a huge amount of reeds, but if they weren't too deep rooted, I'd just pull them myself!

Irish Gardener

I would be all for the retention of reeds, king_of_inismac.
But if they are causing a problem, they may have to go.

Firstly if hand pulling, wear a pair of strong gloves.
Even though it is hard work, hand pulling is quite effective if repeated annually for several years
The best time to carry this out hand pulling is at end of July into early August to weaken the plant, as most of the food reserves produced that season are lost.
Instead of hand pulling, a petrol hedge trimmers or strimmers with strong cord/circular blade can be used to cut down the reeds much quicker.
Be aware that these tools are dangerous to work with, especially on the bank of a pond.
No matter wheather you pull the reeds or cut them, you must remove all floating reed debris as you go.

A follow on method which is very effective in reed reduction is after cutting/pulling reeds, place a sheet of black plastic over the cut area, weighed down by using sand bags/rocks and rope.
If the area recives good sunlight, the high temperatures beneath the plastic will help kill off the re-emerging plants.
The plastic can then be removed the following spring. If a few reeds return, these can easily be pulled.

Sonnenblumen

On a longer term you might be interested to explore introducing reed eating fish. AFAIK there are some species of the carp fish family which are used by European authorities to great effect to help control incessant reed spread.
Carp are however quite very effective also at removing any other cohabiting fish species.

But a monofish cultuure in the pond might not be too big a compromise?

king_of_inismac

Thanks for the replies guys, they're a great help!
I dont really want to cut them because I'd be afraid they'd grow back.

Are they very deep rooted? That is my main concern because there's such a huge amount of them

Thanks again!

Irish Gardener

king_of_inismac wrote:

Thanks for the replies guys, they're a great help!
I dont really want to cut them because I'd be afraid they'd grow back.

Cut/pull them at the time I mentioned and it will weaken them greatly.
Cutting/pulling them outside of that time frame will have the reverse effect and actually thicken them.
Of course you could dig them out, but you would have to be very careful of the ponds sides and base if a liner is present.
In fact new reed shoots can often puncture a liner themselves, if left to run rampant.

king_of_inismac wrote:

Are they very deep rooted? That is my main concern because there's such a huge amount of them.

Common reed’s roots are rarely deeper than 0.6 m (2ft).
You must also be aware that the plants reproduce by rhizomes as well as seed.
These rhizomes are underwater stems, which if dislodged by your digging and left in the water can totally regrow to become a new plant in a short space of time.
Good luck with your exertions

luckat

Reed eating fish? Names, please!

Irish Gardener

luckat wrote:

Reed eating fish? Names, please!

Probably talking about Grass Carp.
But reeds seem to be one of the plants not usually controlled by these fish
as well as stonewort, cattails, bulrushes, smartweed and common rushes.
Also not sure how much reeds they would eat in the coolness of Ireland.

luckat

Hmm. I have a pond that's just taken over by reeds. Small pond, big reeds.