When to remove Hyacinth and other water plants?

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As we enter Fall just wondering when you remove the hyacinth and other water plants or cut back plants. Do you just wait for the first frost and then remove it? I have a lot of Hyacinth, close to half the pond surface. The water has been crystal clear for months and I know the plants are helping with that so do not want to take them out too early. Also, with water lillies do you cut them back to the planter before winter?
 
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I'm a little closer to your climate zone. :)

I take mine out as fall really sets in and the last time I get into the pond (in waders at that point because it's COLD). So when my maple trees have dropped their leaves, I get in and pull out all the hyacinths and cut back other plants. But I don't fully remove anything else. Those things are perennials and they will come back so long as they have roots in pots (lilies) or the rocks on the margin (bog bean, rushes, forget me nots, etc)
 
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As we enter Fall just wondering when you remove the hyacinth and other water plants or cut back plants. Do you just wait for the first frost and then remove it? I have a lot of Hyacinth, close to half the pond surface. The water has been crystal clear for months and I know the plants are helping with that so do not want to take them out too early. Also, with water lillies do you cut them back to the planter before winter?
You should wait for last frost, in my opinion it is better to get all the benefits of a nutrient sucking plant like water lettuce cause that's better for the fish and as the days get colder the water holds more oxygen so it's not like the fish are struggling because of it.
 

addy1

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As we enter Fall just wondering when you remove the hyacinth and other water plants or cut back plants. Do you just wait for the first frost and then remove it? I have a lot of Hyacinth, close to half the pond surface. The water has been crystal clear for months and I know the plants are helping with that so do not want to take them out too early. Also, with water lillies do you cut them back to the planter before winter?
I cut my lilies back, soon, have a bunch, takes a few days, easier when the water is not ice cold. Usually all cut back by October.

Then I post free tubers, if they grew well.

Bog plants, chop when I turn the pond off.
Iris, this year, cut them back, remove some.
 
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As we enter Fall just wondering when you remove the hyacinth and other water plants or cut back plants. Do you just wait for the first frost and then remove it? I have a lot of Hyacinth, close to half the pond surface. The water has been crystal clear for months and I know the plants are helping with that so do not want to take them out too early. Also, with water lillies do you cut them back to the planter before winter?
I'm in southern Vermont and I wait until they're dying, which should honestly be any day now. Most floating pond plants are not hardy to this area so they're going to start dying as soon as you get your first frost, and as you know, first frost is coming soon. I leave mine until they are yellowing, so long as they are green, they stay in the pond.

I wouldn't cut back any plants like lilies or any other potted plant that sends up floating leaves (I have brassica). I would just remove the dead leaves as they turn yellow and do nothing else. Just leave the pot in the bottom of the pond and do nothing. Let it freeze into the ice over the winter and they should come back next year assuming that you bought a hardy variety. If you bought a tropical then you'll have to bring it inside.
 

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I pulled out water lettuce because they weren’t looking so great, however my water hyacinth are still thriving (in St. Louis, MO, USA area). I hope they can stay in the water at least for a couple of more weeks until I can net the pond. I haven’t removed anything or cut back anything else yet - we had a few cold days but it’s back up to almost 80 degrees in the daytime here.
 
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I am in N GA and this year I made the mistake of removing my hyacinth and water lettuce too soon. The plants were covering about 75% of the pond surface area and were starting to look a little bedraggled with a few more yellowing leaves. I wanted to get them out and vacuum the bottom so that I could put the netting on over the ponds. I did this about a week ago and now I am battling green water. I have 3 filters in the skimmer that I clean daily and 4 filters plus 3 bioball bags in the Filterfalls that i rinse about 2X per year. The only additive that I put in the water is beneficial bacteria and liquid barley straw. I’ve never had this problem before, so I guess I’d have to say that I just pulled them too early. I still have several perrenials left I the pond.
 
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I left my water hyacinth in over the winter last year and they grew like crazy this year. I'm in Northern California (8 miles south of the Oregon border) and we had a pretty mild winter. No freezes to speak of.
 
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I am in N GA and this year I made the mistake of removing my hyacinth and water lettuce too soon. The plants were covering about 75% of the pond surface area and were starting to look a little bedraggled with a few more yellowing leaves. I wanted to get them out and vacuum the bottom so that I could put the netting on over the ponds. I did this about a week ago and now I am battling green water. I have 3 filters in the skimmer that I clean daily and 4 filters plus 3 bioball bags in the Filterfalls that i rinse about 2X per year. The only additive that I put in the water is beneficial bacteria and liquid barley straw. I’ve never had this problem before, so I guess I’d have to say that I just pulled them too early. I still have several perrenials left I the pond.
I've had my pond 80-90% of it being water lettuce from mid June to now. I don't know how much nutrients they suck up, but it must be a lot because they grow like crazy. Hornwort's recently put out a lot of growth, I guess it took advantage of the extra light it was getting because there are less leaves, it's thick and fish and fry like to be in it. I've got a bare liner bottom, so water lettuce covering the surface seems to have done a number on all those surface algae that was starting to grow well. Water hyacinth didn't grow that much, it seemed to be just doing its own thing, but I'm in shade, getting less than 2-3hrs in summer, though the water lilies blessed me with 2 great blooms even then.

Though I am looking forward to algae covering my liner to the point where I can no longer see the creases I forgot to take care of.
 

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