Wildfire Tank aka Cattail Pond

Well, it happened. The natives have turned invader and some of them need to go. Those cattails that started as a few blades of grass-looking spears have taken over most of the surface and all of the bottom of the Wildfire Tank. We think they grew up from some fluff delivered a few years back by a visitng Belted kingfisher, because the plants showed up a few months after the visit.

After much research, I found papers and articles that say the cattails are native, papers and articles that say they were brought here from Eurasia, experts who state that only herbicides will kill cattails and list which ones are guaranteed to kill (for a while, anyway), experts who give non-herbicidal ways to control them...

I settled on a combination of shovel, bypass pruners, hands, and Wellies. One of the suggestions was to draw down the water as far as possible, cut the leaves off at the base, then bring the water level back up to at least three inches above the cut. I'm assuming the theory is that without green above the water's surface, they will die. Having tried this, I know that it helps slow the spread but every last leaf on a particular rhizome/runner complex has to be submerged, and their runners can run pretty far.

I did draw the water down significantly; you can see the water line in this picture (lower left, grey color):

As you can see, the cattails have done a fine job of filling up the tank.

At its deepest the water height is within an inch of the tops of my Wellies (rubber boots heretofore only used for caving). Before cutting I decided to dig, starting with the area of soil and rocks at the base of the birdbath (showing in the next picture) and working my way into the water. After almost three hours of digging and pulling (and landing on my rear end in the water more than once as a result of pulling) and becoming quite muddy about the shirt and face I now have two piles that look like this: 



The pile on the left came from the right of the birdbath. The pile beyond & left of the birdbath, including the cattails that are upright, came from the tank directly below the birdbath.

The system of roots includes thick mats of very fine roots that not only hide the long, cord-like runners but provide the perfect medium for the seedlings. Some of the root mats I pulled up hid fine, green-grass-looking baby cattails.

Lower right you can see the runners. Then there are the spaghetti-looking roots. Anything greenish grey-brown soil-colored is a thick mat of fine roots.

Today it is not even 60 degrees so no wading, but I will be hauling the pulled plants to somewhere where they cannot propagate.