Transplanting Cat Tails

[cas]

@csdude55 you can try what I do with my garden flowers that tend to fall over. Put a stake in the center of the roots (being sure not to puncture the liner) and then bring all the stalks up and loosely tie fishing line around them. Sometimes I don't even use a stake, just tieing all the stems together support each other.

 

[csdude55]

I had tied mine together last year, but after looking at @Anthonykoiboy 's pics I've realized that I just have the wrong plant for my pond. I should have gotten dwarfs.

I pulled them completely out yesterday. It wasn't as bad as I thought, I just grabbed the stalks and used steady, low pressure to dislodge the roots. After I got them out I measured, they're easily 9' long! In my poor 3' deep pond!

Pulling them out really clouded up my water so that's a work in progress, but I think it will look a lot better to split my irises in to several pots and fill in the back area, then pull the lilies to the front... and that's it. No more cattails.

 

[Lisak1]

It's a constant process of moving, thinning, shifting, replanting... a pond is never done!

 

[csdude55]

Just wish I had local friends with ponds that liked to trade plants around... I trade garden perennials all the time, but my only friends with a pond have those little 1' deep black plastic ones for ambiance. I hate to just throw these cattails in the woods, but I have no clue what else to do with them.

 

[adavisus]

csdude, your cattails are probably dropping as the plants are growing out of the pot and the roots are bare root with nothing to stop them from keeling over

 

[csdude55]

That's definitely true; if you look at the picture I posted on Sunday at 7:22pm, you'll see the 3 stalks in the back are more straight than the others, and they're the ones that were in the basket. The others had just rooted themselves to the bottom.

They're still waaaaaay taller than I would want, though. It was truly just a bad purchase when I didn't know any better. I found some dwarf cattails online that grow 2-4', so after I split my irises I MIGHT get those for next Spring if I have room towards the back of the pond for them.

I REALLY need to tear it all down and build a new pond that's about 4 times the size of this one.

My apologies to @Sparky, I didn't mean to hijack the thread...

 

[addy1]

Look for mini cattails, I put some in my hot tub pond in a pot, they are just around a 18 inches tall. This is their second season.

 

[Lisak1]

I love the minis! All the things we love about cattails without the size and aggressive behavior. Not many man (or woman!) made ponds are really big enough for the big guys.