My parents' neighborhood pond went from clear to green slime in 5 summers - what finally turned it around was native plants

I went back to visit my folks outside Portland and the pond we used to fish in as kids had this thick layer of duckweed and algae blooms, but then the county started a rain garden project with cattails and sedges along the banks and within two seasons the water cleared up enough to see the bottom again. Has anyone else seen local water bodies bounce back after adding native buffer plants, or is this just a fluke?

2 comments

2 Comments

logan70520d ago

That's really cool it cleared up so fast after they planted the natives?

skyler_smith8520d ago

Did the county remove any existing invasive plants before planting the natives, or did they just add the cattails and sedges on top of whatever was already growing there? I ask because I've seen similar projects where they skipped the removal step and the invasives just kept choking everything out. It's interesting that the water cleared so fast though, two seasons seems quick for a system to balance itself out. Those native plants must have really sucked up all the excess nutrients from lawn runoff. I wonder if the pond also had aeration added, because that can make a huge difference with algae too.