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I have 4 small, self-constructed ponds on the double lot with my suburban house. The largest pond is the size of two parking spaces. The expensive store-and-mail-order pond plants I planted there had a loose grip on the mortal coil, so I was thrilled when the pickerel plant, with its tall stems, arrowhead shaped leaves, and tiny purple flowers, established itself. But the pickerel's secret goal is world domination.
I should have heeded the warnings about its "strong and plump" roots, and Louisiana's ban on Pondeteria Cordata.
Last week, I took advantage of a rare hot and sunny day, pulled on the wetsuit and waded in to thin out the pickerel, and make room for some native rushes.
Oomph. I couldn't lift the first pickerel pot I grabbed. The two dozen pickerels had woven their black roots and the clay potting soils into an underwater, rowboat-sized, inpenetratable, immovable mass.
I began tearing loose softball-sized chunks of root. I perused the first few chunks with a magnifying glass.
Usually, you make some new discoveries during pond-cleaning time. I've spotted tadpoles, curious fish, previously unknown frogs, a small garter snake, and once pulled up a turtle, who was more surprised than I.
But the pickerel root lumps were practically lifeless. I spotted only 2 damselfly nymphs, a few dessicated slugs, a mite, and several potato bugs that may have been secreted abovewater. I put the nymphs back into the water, and began filling up garbage cans with the root lumps, for later placement as bricks in the new walls of an expanded compost bin.
After spending two days on a planned two-hour job, I'd cleared out about 40 square feet of new open water in the pond, instead of the pickerel wall that preceded it. Now I also greatly appreciate the intense labor and replanting needed to restore wetlands.
I added two native rush plants, with their pretty spiked shapes, and thinned the hopefully native arrowheads, which opened up another mystery.
Arrowheads (Sagittaria latifolia, aka Duck Potato, Wapato) have little groups of 3 pretty white flowers, but spread aggressively. They are supposed to have golf-ball sized edible tubers on their roots. But I found none in the dozen I uprooted. Since the tubers can be 1-3 feet from the mother plant, I'm thinking the tubers got torn off by the pickerel roots, since I only retrieved a few inches of Arrowhead roots each time.
When mallards patronized my ponds at other locations, I'd find floating fragments of Arrowhead, after the ducks chowed down. This pond rarely attracts ducks so the Arrowhead is getting out of hand, too.
When this pond was young, before the pickerel took over, it was mostly open water, and visiting herons could catch a fish a minute. Recently, the heron is lucky to catch a fish every ten minutes, before the crows take notice and come over.
Hopefully the heron will enjoy the new open water as much as we do.