A pond can be the best feature on any property—part scenery, part bass habitat, part weekend fishing hangout. But left unchecked, lily pads will happily take the whole thing over, especially in the shallow water around a dock or shoreline. The tricky part is knocking back the problem pads without wiping out the good vegetation that keeps your pond a healthy habitat. Longtime Exmark ambassador and veteran outdoorsman Joe Thomas has been managing his own pond for years, and in this Backyard Life video he shares the targeted, two-step approach he uses to control lily pads while keeping the water beautiful and the bass biting.
Why a Targeted Approach Beats Broad Chemicals
Most pond owners reach for whatever knocks back weeds fastest—but that’s where a lot of ponds get into trouble. Some aquatic herbicides (like 2,4-D) dissolve into the water and kill just about everything, including the beneficial vegetation like milfoil and duckweed that Joe wants to keep. Aqua Shade, a pond dye that limits sunlight to slow plant and algae growth, is also detrimental. Wipe out the good vegetation along with the lily pads, and you’ve stripped away the habitat that makes the pond great for bass in the first place.
Joe’s honest about the tradeoff: it bugs him to remove lily pads at all. They’re excellent bass habitat and they look great on the water. But the cove in front of his house and around the dock is only a couple of feet deep, and if he doesn’t manage them, the pads will take over the entire area. That’s where his kids launch their kayaks and where the family fishes off the dock. So it has to be managed—just carefully, and only where it’s needed.
The Two-Step Chemical Combo
Instead of a blanket treatment, Joe uses a two-part approach that targets the lily pads specifically:
- Aquatic-labeled Glyphosate is the workhorse. It’s the part that gets sucked down to the root and kills the plant.
- An aquatic surfactant is the piece a lot of people skip. It helps the herbicide spread across the waxy leaf surface and improves absorption instead of allowing it to bead up and run off. As Joe puts it, that combination is deadly on the pads you’re targeting.
The two aren’t sprayed one after the other. In fact, they’re mixed in the same sprayer, so every pass delivers both at once.
Timing Is Everything: Treat in Late Summer
The single biggest factor in whether a treatment works is when you do it. Joe’s window is August and September. In late summer, lily pads are pulling nutrients down into their roots to prepare for winter—which means they’ll also pull the herbicide straight down to the root along with everything else. Treat at the wrong time of year and you’re mostly fighting the surface. Treat in late summer and you’re hitting the plant where it lives.
Application Tips for a Clean, Effective Treatment
A few details make the difference between a treatment that works and one that drifts off target:
- Tip 1: Pick a calm, sunny day. Calm conditions keep overspray to a minimum, and sunshine gives the pads the best chance to absorb the chemical. Overspray isn’t just wasteful—it’s hard on the surrounding lawn.
- Tip 2: Be patient. It may take several treatments to fully clear a stubborn pond of lily pads.
- Tip 3: Use the recommended product interval. Follow the product label before making repeat applications.
- Tip 4: Use a boat for the tough spots. For anything you can’t reach from the shoreline, a small boat makes it easy to get the treatment exactly where it needs to go.
The Big Picture
Controlling lily pads is all about balance. Targeted aquatic-labeled glyphosate and an aquatic surfactant, applied at the right time of year in the right conditions, let you open up the shallow water around your dock while leaving the habitat that makes your pond a great fishery intact. Manage it carefully and you get the best of both worlds: clear water where you need it, and healthy cover where you want it. (And a great spot to live up your best backyard life, of course!)
Frequently Asked Questions About Controlling Lily Pads in a Pond
Late summer—August and September—is the ideal window. During this period, lily pads are drawing nutrients down into their roots to prepare for winter, so they’ll pull the herbicide down to the root system too. That root-level kill is what prevents the pads from bouncing right back the following season.
Aim for mid-morning to midday on a calm, sunny day. Early morning is usually when the wind is lightest, which keeps overspray off your lawn and the surrounding water—but you also want the sun up and the pads actively soaking in light, since that’s when the leaves absorb the most treatment. Giving the pads a few hours of full sun to take everything in is what makes each pass count. Skip windy afternoons and overcast days, when the chemical is more likely to drift off target or sit on the surface instead of getting pulled into the plant.
Not if you’re selective about it. Lily pads themselves are good bass habitat, which is part of why Joe Thomas only clears them where he has to—like the shallow cove around his dock. The bigger risk to habitat comes from broad-spectrum treatments that kill off beneficial vegetation like milfoil and duckweed along with the pads. Treating just the problem areas with a targeted glyphosate-and-surfactant approach lets you open up the water you use while leaving that cover in place.
Often more than once. A heavy stand of lily pads may require several treatments before it’s fully under control. The key rule is to space applications out—never treat the same area more than once during the application interval specified by the product label to avoid overloading the pond.
A surfactant bonds the herbicide to the plant so it sticks rather than washing off into the water. That means more of the chemical stays on the lily pads and gets absorbed instead of running off, which makes each treatment more effective.
