How to Get Rid of Cattails – What Are The Basics?
Cattails are a frequent occurrence within several North American settings, particularly happening near bodies of water, and at first seeming rather innocent. At first you may notice one of these plants and dismiss it. You might even think that same thing the next day, and the next day, and maybe several days after that, until that one day that you look out the window, and your whole pond is taken over to a point in which you require an air-boat to navigate it like you’re situated in the everglades.
Now that you’ve been overrun by the evil army of the cattail, what sort of counterattack can you do? Will you rally your army and run in with guns (or pesticides) blazing? Or will you choose guerrilla warfare? That is totally up to you, since regardless of which technique you choose, the plants aren’t sentient, therefore they won’t see your approach, indicating that you will constantly have the element of surprise. That also means that you could likely get rid of the camouflage and take the paint off of your face. Those binoculars and the gas mask likely will not be needed either.
The choices available to you are many in the area of cattail removal, and of course, since the pond belongs to you (unless for some reason you’ve decided to do battle with your next door neighbor’s pond), you’re free to choose any of the following techniques:
Physical Removal – You are of course, welcome to attempt pulling those cattails up by yourself. If you do that, attempt to get to them when they are young, otherwise they will gain strong roots and end up very hard to pull. That would additionally become a huge chore, because by the time that you start pulling them, odds are they have already taken over the pond, and there’ll be a ton of them.
Cutting – You may chop down the cattails, but remember that it’s smart to chop them somewhere around one inch under the water line so you’ll starve them of oxygen and they will die.
Lowering the Water Line – Cattails, just like anything else, need water in order to survive. Through lowering the pond’s water line, and making sure that the plants don’t receive everything that they require, you’ll find that they die out pretty fast, unless of course they have already spread their seed, meaning you’ll need to do this all over again the next year. If you have no issue with lowering and raising the water in the pond every single year, then this will be a realistic choice.
Pesticides – A final decision, because pesticides can hurt the organic life in your pond, which would cancel out the reason for owning the pond. However, you may continue purchase any pesticides which you need from both stores, or online. Just remember the dangers.
Keep another thing in mind, you might believe these cattails are a major problem and you need to destroy each and every of them, but know that cattails help stop erosion, and that’s a very good thing. Therefore remember to leave at the very least a couple of them standing, because all plants and animals (wasps not included) has a purpose, even if that reason is as yet unknown.
