How to Get Rid of Cattails – What Are The Basics?
Cattails are a frequent phenomenon within many North American settings, most especially happening near bodies of water, and initially seeming rather innocuous. At first you may notice such a plant and dismiss it. You may just believe that same thing the following day, and the next day, and perhaps many days following that, until that one day that you look out the window, and your whole pond has been overgrown to the point in which you require an air-boat to navigate it as if you were living in the everglades.
So, now that you have been invaded by the evil army of the cattail, what kind of counterattack can you do? Will you rally the troops and run in with guns (or pesticides) blazing? Or will you opt guerrilla warfare? That is completely for you to decide, since regardless of what technique you choose, the plants aren’t sentient, so they will not see your approach, indicating that you will constantly possess the element of surprise. That additionally entails that you could probably get rid of the camouflage and take the paint off of your face. Those binoculars and gas mask probably won’t be needed either.
The choices available to you are not few in the area of cattail destruction, and of course, since the pond belongs to you (unless for some reason you have decided to attack the neighbor’s pond), you’re welcome to choose any of these techniques:
Physical Removal – You are naturally, welcome to try pulling those cattails up by yourself. If you do that, try to pull them when they’re very young, lest they take strong root and become very difficult to pull. This would also become a huge chore, because around the time you start pulling them, odds are they’ve now taken over your pond, and there’ll be a ton of them.
Cutting – You may chop down the cattails, but keeping mind that it’s smart to chop them somewhere around one inch under the water line so as to deprive them of oxygen and kill them.
Lowering the Water Line – Cattails, just like any other living creature, need water to survive. By lowering the water line, and making sure those plants do not receive everything they require, you will discover they die out rather quickly, that is unless they have actually spread their seed, meaning you will need to do this all over again the following year. If you’ve no problem with lowering and raising the water of the pond every year, then this would be a realistic choice.
Pesticides – This should be a final decision, because pesticides may hurt any organic life within the pond, which sort of defeats the purpose of having the pond. Regardless, you may continue purchase any pesticides that you require from both stores, or from online. Only remember the dangers.
Keep another thing in mind, you may believe cattails are a major issue and you need to eradicate all of them, however take note that cattails serve to prevent erosion, and that’s a very good thing. Therefore remember to leave at least a few cattails standing, because every creature (wasps excluded) has a purpose, even if that purpose is obscure.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 4:04 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.