Author Topic: We went plant digging today. (Read 1946 times)

PondmaninAL · « **on:** March 17, 2009, 06:48:37 PM »

My wife and I went over to a friend's house today and we all went to a lake nearby to dig some plants. We got our friend some pickerel rush and some spatterdock, got me some cattails, and we both got what could possibly be a pond weed. I will have to do some searching to find out what it is but it had floating, football shaped, leaves and rooted on the bottom like a water lily. We are heading out to another lake tomorrow.

tinkster · « **Reply #1 on:** March 17, 2009, 07:38:10 PM »

woohooo.. that sounds fun. I am not sure what grows wild in my area or if i would even want what did but it would be fun to go looking.

tink

landey1230 · « **Reply #2 on:** March 17, 2009, 07:53:46 PM »

That does sound like fun. Free is always a good thing.

Julles · « **Reply #3 on:** March 17, 2009, 07:57:13 PM »

Let us know what that foot ball plant is.

Do you wash, or quarantine the plants, before putting them into your pond?

Vickie · « **Reply #4 on:** March 17, 2009, 08:36:04 PM »

Can it be splatterdock? Cow Lily?
http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/database/emergent_plants/spatterdock.htm

tranquility · « **Reply #5 on:** March 18, 2009, 08:04:24 AM »

Yep sounds like pond weed to me....I had one just pop up in one of the pools a few years back....I really liked the look of it so I kept it....So far mine has only gotten a spread of about 2' so its quite managable....
Lawanna

PondmaninAL · « **Reply #6 on:** March 18, 2009, 09:01:36 PM »

Okay, the football shaped one is water shield, which is related to the water lily.

Vickie, we had also gathered some spatterdock and cow lilies are just another name for spatterdock. Yesterday's load also yielded one mosquito fish that we caught while getting the water to put the plants in. I almost had a crawdad but it got away. Oh, one spatterdock plant that we got my friend had the biggest bloom that I had ever seen on one.

Today, we went to another pond/lake. We gathered more cattails for me and some more mosquito fish. I also got two surprises from this trip. One, which I was sure that I knew what it was, was banana lily, which grows like a vivip water lily but has small, five petaled, blooms. I had this plant before when I moved down here but lost it all. Yes, this is the same thing that you buy in pet stores for the aquariums. The second surprise was a little grass like plant that had white flowers. Our friend said that they seemed to open their bloom for us. We dug up five of them, three for our friend and two for us. I still haven't identified it yet.

These lakes/ponds where we got these plant have pretty low water levels. Most of the banana lilies were dug up on almost dry land. The rest of the plants were in just a few inches of water. We definitely did not leave the area bare of plants and would say that we dug a small fraction of the plants that were there.

Lastly, our friend has given me some blue flag iris. Now I need to get busy potting.

sushi · « **Reply #7 on:** March 19, 2009, 03:27:52 AM »

I would clean them well. I brought some fisher spiders home from maine about 5 yrs ago on some "free" plants and can't get rid of them. They're the size of a golfball full grown and will give a nice bite. I also brought in a water scorpion. Be carefull.....

PondmaninAL · « **Reply #8 on:** March 19, 2009, 07:22:12 PM »

Sushi, no need to worry. I quarantine the plants that I get. I'm a collector, whether from the wild, the stores, or other people.

marla · « **Reply #9 on:** March 20, 2009, 06:41:22 AM »

Sounds like you got quit a haul, I've gotten from the marshes here but yes always do a pp or bleach solution rinse before adding them to the ponds.

jw · « **Reply #10 on:** March 20, 2009, 09:24:33 AM »

I've collected duck weed and some Myrophillium and Elodea but they are quick to get rid of the stuff in lakes around here with poisons. Seems as tho everything is banned because it takes over so quick. Gets in the boat motors and swimmers get tangled etc. I was wading in a lake over in Eastern Wa. by Spokane and pulling out all sorts of good stuff and when I came out of the water I had these little tiny leeches stuck all over my feet! Yikes, I always thought if anything like that ever happened to me I would FREAK OUT but hey they were just tiny little guys so I just went back in to get more plants and when I was done I just wiped them off in to the water. No problemo! And I did get lots of good oxygenating plants for under the water. Can't find any floating ones except the duckweed and my fish eat that like candy.
Janice

Julles · « **Reply #11 on:** March 20, 2009, 02:23:39 PM »

Janice, I have some floating baskets that I have my duckweed in. The fish can't get to it, and it looks really cool, floating on the surface in the shape of a perfect circle.

Kat · « **Reply #12 on:** March 20, 2009, 02:35:25 PM »

Sounds like you've gotten some great plants & lots of fun in the process

jw · « **Reply #13 on:** March 20, 2009, 03:10:17 PM »

That's a great idea Julles and I could make it as big as I wanted. The fish could have some shade under it and I could toss them some for a treat once in awhile. How do you get them to float? If I rigged up something with sides of wood (wood floats) and attached a screen on the bottom it would kinda look El Natural. I will have to experiment. If I succeed I will put up a picture.
janice

jw · « **Reply #14 on:** March 20, 2009, 03:12:25 PM »

Kat it was a lot of fun. Now everywhere I go I look for pond plants in the lakes.
janice

PondmaninAL · « **Reply #15 on:** March 20, 2009, 07:36:58 PM »

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also was able to collect eleven American lotus seeds. I'm still trying to find out what the little white flower is that looks like a 3" tall grass, sedge, or rush. I will try to get a pic of it tomorrow.

tootsie · « **Reply #16 on:** March 21, 2009, 07:49:12 AM »

Well, you had a good HAUL

When I first discovered what looked like a water lily growing high out of a huge ditch I almost jumped out of the truck.....while it was still going, LOL Ran full bore into ditch and got my hands around a good size stalk and yanked my guts out! Almost falling on my face!! Ugh, muck everywhere

Just happened to have a kiddie pool in bed of truck

Got it home put it in the pond, and up came the stronges wind gusts EVER! I watched that plant whirl around and around the pond, until the next morning when wind had calmed down! Found it out of the pond next to and under the big swing! When I got to puter, tried to find out what it was? Yup spatter dock indeed! Ended up going back and getting more, this time it rooted itself in side of pond. It is a small yellow flower, but I will keep it

Julles · « **Reply #17 on:** March 21, 2009, 11:26:50 AM »

Janis,

I was lucky and had on hand a large flower pot made of black styrofoam. I sliced it into rings. Some of the rings I use for feeding rings. The others I made into baskets, using the mesh they sell for patio covers and screens (get it at Home Depot, or a garden center) and fishing line. The styrofoam is boyant enough to keep the baskets afloat.

I also made a larger rectangular "corral" out of PVC pipe and the same black plastic screen & fishing line. If you seal the PVC joints, that will float, too. But it's better to let water inside the PVC with a few holes drilled. The corral is 7-sided, and the 8th side (the top) is open. I set it on milk crates, and have lilies in it, plus a few fancy fantail goldfish. The koi can swim around and under it, but can't bother the plants.

Somewhere on here, about the only time I ever managed to post a photo, there is a picture of it. That would be about last March.

jw · « **Reply #18 on:** March 22, 2009, 05:10:33 PM »

Thanks Julles for the ideas. So the pvc will float with holes drilled into it? Wish I could see your picture of it but don't know where to look for it. I can't envision the plans that your talking about exactly. I get the one about the styrofoam but the other one not sure. Also can you buy black pvc? What is a safe kind of glue to use? I gotta get busy and start making this stuff soon. It's gonna be fun!
Janice

PondmaninAL · « **Reply #19 on:** March 22, 2009, 09:11:40 PM »

Tootsie, I describe spatterdock as "a water lily on steroids." I had a nice one. It started out as a little unknown plant that was in with two broad-leaf arrowheads. When it wasn't growing right, I placed it in a bucket and filled it up. Soon there were pads floating. I potted it and sunk it down to the bottom with the water lilies. In two years, I was able to split it up into four plants. Two were doing really well and the other two were doing okay. Then I introduced koi. Now, I only have two that are struggling. I had them in a shallow trough and, this past week, put them back in with the water lilies. I will fertilize them and see how they do. My friend has one with a big bloom. I'm hoping that it goes to seed. I found a seed pod but I think we picked it to early.

tootsie · « **Reply #20 on:** March 23, 2009, 02:48:07 AM »

Scott, I just looked recently and, THE POND HAS ICE AND SNOW ON IT :'( I found the spatterdock growing in a huge farm ditch! I was NOT the one who jumped into that huge muddy, mucky ditch! Like I said the first one in my pond just went around and around with the high winds! I tried to dig on one side of the pond and plant another one. The yellow flower does not open wide at all! The leaves are very green and pretty tho

Here is one of the pictures from last summer.

PondmaninAL · « **Reply #21 on:** March 23, 2009, 06:34:57 PM »

Tootsie, the flowers won't open fully. That's the way the spatterdock is. It's not very pretty but it is unique.