Bulrushes - a cunning plan
Blueboots
Posts: 100
I have a small lined pond (about 10 ft across) which is choked with bulrushes. I've tried pulling them out individually, but that's quite tough, and sometimes the leaves pull out suddenly without the roots, and I've nearly fallen on my backside - or worse - overcompensated and nearly fallen headlong into the pond.
The bulrushes are in one big dense mat, too huge to just pull out altogether, so I have a cunning plan to deal with them.
I will carefully hook up a bit of it at the edge with a rake, then take my Fiskar's saw-on-a-stick and saw off bits till I've got it all out.
I haven't actually tried this yet. Would anyone care to comment before I take two pointy implements to a plastic lined pond? I can't think of anything better. Standing in the pond isn't a great option because I think I'd go through it - and my blue boots have started to leak 
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Posts
That will get the tops off Bb but what about that dense mat at the bottom
In the sticks near Peterborough
I think I've got that covered utcutlet. I just hook up a bit at the edge with the rake, and saw vertically through the mat, being careful not to go deep enough to nick the liner. I think it's going to take a lot of sawing and balancing though.
I've got a lot of the tops off by basically heaving the rake into the middle of the tops and pulling off what I could. It was quite good exercise!
However I do it, I see myself going in headfirst at some stage. Maybe I shouid consider wearing a wetsuit.
I think we'll need to see some photos of this operation Bb. If you have the muscle It must work. Keep a bucket or 3 of water standing by to rescue anything that you find in there. It will help get things going again when you refil. Pond water preferably.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I will take the camera down (I have a waterproof one)
. I think I took a "before" picture of the bulrushes in their full glory a few weeks ago.
I waited till it didn't look like there was much wildlife in there. I think the frogspawn all froze and died this year. I have seen frogs though.
The only place I'm going to get pondwater is the pond I'm working on. Of the other two (to be turned into one big bog garden), one has dried up, and the other is a stinking mess of mud and snails. Thanks for mentioning that though, I could augment pond water with water out of the tub rather than hard tap water.
I'm going to have to scrape muck off the bottom when I'm done with the bulrushes. I think it's best to dump that on the grass right next to the pond to let things crawl out of it back into the water. Would that be the right thing to do? The grass is nothing to write home about.
Last bit sounds good Bb. You may be surprised what you find.
Perhaps you need some of those fishermans waders.
In the sticks near Peterborough
When is this event scheduled for Bb?
In the sticks near Peterborough
Good question. I was just looking at a hefty trellis that's going to come down if we don't do something soon, and I need to get a load of beds weeded, and...
I'll do it next weekend if the urge doesn't strike me beforehand.
I will remember to take the camera.
I've done it! Well I've mostly done it. I was so exhausted that I gave up with a bit to go. I'd pull out individual roots with my hands where I could. Sometimes I could hook roots up with the rake and just heave them away from the rest of the mat. Other times I needed to hook up a bit, then saw it away from the mat.
To get the rest out (it's really stubbon, and the rake isn't gripping) I'm thinking of getting a rope under it and pulling. Two people might be able to shift it - or at least make it more amenable to hooking out.
I should also admit I had some help
Here are the before, during and after pictures. I haven't had much luck posting pictures before so here goes. They are all 700 pixels wide so should be a reasonable size for the forum.