Cattails

Cattails have a bad reputation for being invasive and overwhelming for a pond or bog, but there are several civilized ones out there. The picture is of a striped one, even though it's kind of hard to tell. I had hoped to get closed, but didn't feel like risking falling into the pond. The leaves remind me of a white and green striped grass, often more white than green. The like to grow at the edge of a pond or in a bog, but can be grown in a pot just like the waterlilies if you need to have more control over them. Two others you can use in smaller ponds are Typha laxmanii and Typha minima. Laxmanii is about 3 feet tall with very skinny leaves. It is mostly a scaled down version of the regular cattail. Minima is really tiny, only about a foot tall and the leaves are round rather than flat. They have "cats" - what d0 they call those things at the top of cattails - that are little round balls rather than rectangular ones. They can be used in even the smallest ponds.