The cattails are now installed, turning the small pond between the pasture and the cattle spur into a marsh. I left a couple of feet near the culvert free of weeds, as I reckon the section man would have dug up that area to keep the culvert free.
The pond is about 40 scale feet wide and a dozen feet deep, and quickly consumed 250 weeds. The principal challenge in planting these cattails is that they want to relax and assume their original flat shape almost immediately, but especially once they come in contact with the glue (Aleene’s Tacky).
At first, I simply worked quickly, and then added some small wooden blocks to prop the plants up at the edges. They still want to fall over, but neighbours support one another, and the result is a nice weedy appearance, even if slightly more higgledy-piggledy than is strictly accurate. Over the course of planting I refined the technique slightly. In the end, I wrapped a piece of masking tape around a dozen or so plants, and glued them down as a unit. This made them stand up as straight as the real ones, but perhaps too densely.
Overall, the marsh looks pretty marshy, and I’m happy with the way it has turned out.
Pembroke:87 