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Pond oxygenating plant leaves have been eaten

LucidLucid Posts: 387
in Problem solving

Hi everyone,

We've got Myriophyllum spicatum (Spiked Water Milfoil) as our pond oxygenating plant and I'm a little worried the leaves have been eaten by something. Here's a photo from November where you can hopefully make out the healthy looking bunches:

image

 Here's a more recent photo where the stems now look skeletons with no leaves on:

image

As far as I can tell this has happened to the entire stems and I was wondering if this is normal? My guess was they've been eaten by some kind of pond creature - we don't have fish and no frogspawn or newtspawn at this stage. What I don't know is whether it tends to grow back or whether it has been destroyed by whatever has eaten it.

I'll be putting in an order for my final plant (frogbit) towards the end of the month so wondered if I should purchase a new batch of oxygenator - probably hornwort.

Thanks for any advice,

Lucid image

Posts

  • darren636darren636 Posts: 666
    If the stems are green , it should grow back.

    Probably snail damage , but I've yet to use this plant , so that's a guess



    Maybe grab a bunch of elodea as a guarantee?

    Or starwort?



    Elodea does multiply and will need thinning in late summer.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,142

    I've seen what I think are Diving Beetle larvae eating the leaves of oxygenators - they seem to grow back just fine.

    I like the native hornwort - it's a brilliant oxygenator and settles in quickly, but it doesn't mind being radically thinned as necessary.


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LucidLucid Posts: 387

    Thanks darren636 and Dovefromabove. We've definitely got lots of pond snails - I'd only spotted one and then a couple of weeks ago a load of them suddenly emerged overnight. I have spotted a single water beetle so far but only over the last few days. The plant is still green so it sounds as though they should grow back.

    Hornwort had been my first choice as I liked the idea of not needing a basket at the bottom of the pond. Unfortunately it was out of season when I was purchasing the plants so I settled for the spiked water milfoil. I'm now tempted to get some hornwort anyway, but I'm guessing it'd be overkill to have two types of oxygenators in the pond?

    Lucid image

  • darren636darren636 Posts: 666
    The more plant life the better!
  • LucidLucid Posts: 387

    Thanks darren636. That's enough to justify it for me. image

    Lucid image

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,142
    darren636 wrote (see)
    The more plant life the better!

    Absolutely agree image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • darren636darren636 Posts: 666
    The more plants and the more species you have greatly affect the biodiversity of the pond, the water can only support a certain number of critters due to oxygen demand. Having a large water surface area and many oxygenators are ways to increase animal activity.
  • LucidLucid Posts: 387

    That sounds great. I'd also been planning on getting the water forget-me-not as I'd read it was very beneficial for newts. I was told in another thread that I probably already had too many plant varieties in my pond for the size of it. But I think I may just go for it and see what happens.

    Lucid image

  • darren636darren636 Posts: 666
    Too many plants????
  • LucidLucid Posts: 387

    That's what was suggested on the basis that the pond plants grow and spread very quickly. But I definitely prefer the idea of having more variety, and I'd like at least one other plant that the newts can use for their eggs - I think they can also use the water mint which I've got.

    Lucid image

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