Cattails are a familiar phenomenon within several North American environments, particularly occurring in or around ponds, and initially seeming fairly innocent. Initially you might see such a plant and think nothing of it. You may just think that same thing the following day, and the next day, and maybe many days following that, until that one day you peer out the window, and the whole pond has been taken over to the point in which you need an air-boat to navigate it as if you were living in the everglades.

Now that you have been invaded by the cunning army of the cattail, what sort of offensive can you do? Will you rally your army and go in with guns (or pesticides) blazing? Or will you opt guerrilla warfare? That is completely up to you, since regardless of what method you choose, the plants aren’t sentient, so they won’t see you coming, indicating that you’ll always possess the element of surprise. This additionally entails that you can probably get rid of the camouflage and take the paint off of your face.  The binoculars and gas mask likely won’t be required either.

The options available to you are not few for cattail destruction, and of course, since that pond belongs to you (unless for an unknown purpose you’ve set out to attack your next door neighbor’s pond), you’re free to choose any of the following methods:

Physical Removal – You are naturally, welcome to try pulling the cattails yourself. But if you do that, try to pull them when they’re young, otherwise they will take sturdy roots and become very hard to pull. This will also turn into a all order, because around the time that you get around to eliminating them, chances are they have already overrun the pond, and there will be a lot of them.

Cutting – You can chop down the cattails, though keeping mind that it’s smart to chop them somewhere around an inch below the water line so you’ll starve them of oxygen and they will die.

Lowering the Water Line – Cattails, just like any other living creature, require water to survive. Through reducing the pond’s water line, and ensuring those plants do not get all the things they need, you’ll find that they expire rather quickly, that is unless they have actually spread seeds, in which case you’ll have to do this again the following year. If you’ve no problem with lowering and raising the water level of the pond every single year, then that would be a realistic option for you.

Pesticides – A last resort, because pesticides may hurt the organic life in your pond, which would cancel out the reason for owning the pond. However, you can still purchase any pesticides which you need from stores, or from the Internet. Only remember the risks.

Remember this, you might think these cattails are a serious issue and you have to destroy all of them, however take note that cattails serve to prevent erosion, and that’s definitely a good thing. Therefore remember to leave at least a few of them alive, because every creature (wasps not included) has a purpose, even though the purpose is unknown.