Wondering if anyone has had success digging up cattails and transplanting them?
Is it the wrong time of the year to try?

Interesting question. I have no experience with transplanting them, but I can't imagine why it wouldn't work. Would you be replanting them in water or in a very high water table area or just in a dry land area???

Isn't there an invasive species or hybrid cat tail out there that doesn't need to be relocated? I seem to recall reading something like that.

I've seen it done several times and it doesn't seem to matter when they are transplanted as they are very hearty. Now saying that, yes there is a europen cattail that is concidered invasive. I don't know the difference but do know the majority of the cattails you see today are the invasive ones. Growing up I don't recall anyone having problems with cattails choking out lakes and ponds like you are today. Think it would be safe to say that this is due to the introduction of the european cattail. Might want to do some more research to make sure you know which one your transplanting.

I have heard about invasive species of phragmites that outcompete native cattails causing damage to march ecosystems, but not a European cattail. Wikipedia confirms that there is a problem with invasive European phragmites and that cattails in Europe and America are the same.

All you need do is dig up the rhyzomes, (sp) (roots bulb) and stick it in the mud. Careful what you wish for, they will spread like crazy, and as they die back and fall over in the fall they tend to fill up a pond till it's gone. However the root's and shoots are edible, can be cooked like potatoes, boiled, mashed, or baked, and are yummie!

The European cattail is rampant in central MN and where it has taken over or hybridized there are far fewer m'rats and redwing blackbird(don't know what other species it effects as it is not being investigated to any extent). It grows so thick ii chokes out most open water. The waterfowl feds are the only ones talking about it to any degree and are now blowing holes in it and spaying w/herbicides to open areas for waterfowl production. It looks so close to native cattail that its spread has largely gone unnoticed.

I live on a 7 square mile shallow lake that years back was covered with cattails so thick you could not see the water, it even caught fire a few times from lightening strikes. Now we can't get them to grow we get some other reeds that try to grow but the survival rate is low. Not sure if the die-off poisoned the mud to not allow new growth but it's been 15 years with little cover on the shoreline.

Never heard of anyone who wants cattails. They can be a major pain if you want to get rid of them.

If you lived close to me, I would tell you to come over and dig all mine out. Things are a pain in the butt.

Exactly

we had a small pond and we put cattails in a big rubber feed buckets, they grew great and didn't spread out of the bucket. had to weight the top of the bucket with a brick cuz roots like to float up.

The native vs the introduced cattail the seed head is different. The spot between where the male flower and the seed pod there is a one inch gap.
But at the moment cant remember who is who .Mr. Google knows.

Back-hoe dig clumps and then float them into place in new home.
Hot work but works.

Law Dog you need just the perfect drawdown, slow so the little cattails germinate and the mud flats remain moist, it looks like a carpet of grass, they get to 3 inches in the summer, the cover cant be flooded or the plants drown, the second year they are 2 feet high and the rizones can hold water and they can be in water because they can get air. In Spring there has to be dead stalks above the water so the rizomes can breath, that's why skidoo trails that beat them down the cattails die and do not grow back in because of this spring flooding.

Thanks all for the good info...

This subject was brought up while talking to a good friend that has a pond which has to many cattails for his liking. I offered to take just a few for a small project that I have going on.
Just wasn’t sure if cattails liked to be transplanted..sounds like it’s worth my efforts to go ahead and try..

Thanks again

We have some of that darn phragmites started around here. I hope one doesn't inadvertantly transfer it, like from seeds on waders.

There was a great thread on here a while back about the different species of cattails (invasive vs native). It was full of excellent info but I can't find it.

spray the head of phragmites with roundup in the fall when it has a head [flower, seed], the invasive cattails is a small head cattail , about 3-4 inches

Just avoid the narrow leaf cattails. Have noticed the rats won't feed on them and they get real dense. Have been killing them whenever I see some starting. Easy to id with very narrow leaves and skinny little heads. They will cross with regular ones and the rats don't like the hybrid any better. Mike

I have a small pond at my house. A couple of years ago I decided to make it bigger. I stripped the topsoil out next to the existing pond, removed most of it and piled the rest up in the basin. Then it started raining and the next year and a half was the wettest ever recorded in PA. That shut down the job. Two years later there were native cattails growing out of the base f the leftover topsoil pile. They came back this spring.

I'm going to try to keep them in the new, bigger pond.

As far as taking over; the pic below is from a pond I've been fishing for thirty years or more. That same stand of native cattails has always been there and has always been about that size. There is another, bigger patch at the other end that has not spread in all that time either.

Never heard of people wanting cattails before. I got a small pond behind us that seems like it is getting closer and closer every year to the house as the cattails are creeping up through the yard. Not to high jack the thread but anyone got a good way of killing them? I have sprayed them before but it just seems to have a temporary effect on them as they die and new ones come up right next to them.