Hi Big Ron, welcome to ponding ! And Ap !
The tall plants in the first pic sre native broad leaf cattails just like you see along the roadside. You might have narrow leaf cattail in your area too. Both are beautiful.
I assume you have a liner pond,mine are all mud ponds. Don't be misled by the word mud because the water is kept clear by all of the plants.
Someone else will have to answer your questions about water hyacinth. I know you have to winter it indoors and it's great for fish and water quality. I want some for a phyto filter experiment.
A tall native plant that I like is Woolgrass Bullrush. It looks like a small version of papyrus with tufts of wooly feeling seed heads and long grass like leaves about 3-4 ft. tall. You can find it this time of year growing along creeks and ditch lines and identifying it by feeling the wooly seed heads. Or course it's yellow and dry this time of year but it's a good time to ID it and transplant it.
Here is a pic of it.
The third pic shows how it seems to space itself about 8 ft. apart. I did not plant those they just came up on there own like that. A neighbors pond is exactly the same way ! I almost never see 2 growing next to each other and they are always 7-8 ft. apart. They are seperate plants and are not connected. ????? !
The fourth pic is test seedlings from last year.
