Pond Weed Identification

Ponds are living breathing ecosystems and are designed to support life.  Therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise when you experience weed and algae growth, in fact, it should be expected.  When your pond begins to have excessive weed growth it is time to take action.  When I say action, many probably think let’s go get some herbicides to kill off my weeds.  However, the first action you need to take is to identify your pond weeds.   

Pond weed identification is the first and most important step to treating your pond weed growth.  If you do this before you purchase treatment products you can save a lot of time, money, and frustration.  Pond weed identification will determine which product you need to purchase to effectively control your weeds.   

 

For example, many people mistaken Chara for a weed.  It is rooted to the pond floor, has a stem, and resembles many other pond weeds.  However, Chara is an algae and needs to be treated with an algaecide not an herbicide.  If you would have purchased an herbicide to treat Chara it would have done nothing to your growth and you wasted your time, money and the growth would probably be worse by the time your realized what happened. 

 

There are many resources online and at your local library to help make pond weed identification easy.  Visit the pond weed identification section on our site or contact our helpful staff.