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Duck weed - Help please

How do I get rid of duck weed? My pond is getting choked with it.  We cleared it before the bad weather (frost and snow), but it's now back with a vengance.

  • I've heard the only safe way is to just remove it by hand unfortunately. I saw a good tip somewhere - use a stainless steel sieve, you can scoop it out and bang it against something hard to empty it, rinse and repeat. Then pick out by hand the hard to reach areas. I try and manage to amount of duckweed in my pond but I don't really want to get rid of it completely - as I hear it's presence is a sign of a healthy pond and also creatures feed on it. I also heard frogs smell are attracted by it.

  • Hi Wren,

    I have quite a bit of duckweed in my pond, and I tend to pick it out by hand because I have quite few tadpoles swimming around so have to be careful!! I quite like it in the pond as long as it does not get too invasive. I have around fourteen frogs that I have seen in and around my pond area, I have some seed trays on the edge of the pond and they love to sit underneath them!!! Nice to know they are here in the pond and garden!! :) love to see frogs around they need all the pond habitat help they can get, and nice to know quite a few people on the forum have ponds too :)

  • Hi Sharon,

    I have the exact same problem removing the duckweed without removing the taddies! My duckweed has spread alarmingly beyond the acceptable 31.2% coverage level i allow lol. When I picked some out a couple of tiny taddies came out with it, it's a pain! The weather is supposed to be decent this weekend so I plan to remove loads of duckweed.

    Like you, I love the pond life and frogs, we get spawn every year and see the adult frogs occasionally, although they must keep their heads down due to the blinkin cats around!

  • Hi Wren,

    I will be removing some duckweed this weekend, we have had lovely weather for the past few days and its grown so much, its unbeliveable. Yes there are so many dangers for Frogs and Toads, we have shrubs and plants for them to hide under and in but they love the seed trays and I think feel really safe there. Good luck with your duckweed removing :)

  • China-mark moths utilise duckweed so make sure you leave some in the pond.

  • Thanks for that - I didn't know that. I don't think I'll ever be without the duckweed - we went away and the pond was covered again. We do have lily pads as an alternative though.

  • Duckweed is a food plant for various of the China-mark moth larvae so definitely worth having some in your pond.  Like most, I remove mine by hand - Spirogyra is a much worse problem in mine.