Water Lilies gone wild

Question
Hey Brigitte, I appreciate your time.  I have a large water garden that I have maintain about 3 years. It is about 18' long with a 7' circular end that is 18" deep & a 9' circular end that is 24" deep. The pond has several goldfish, frogs, & snails.  I also have a couple different types of water lilies.  One type that is slow growing that produces large pink flower-they are truly beautiful.  And another that produces several small buttercup type yellow flowers usually several will bloom at one time.  The yellow flowers have run wild and are now ALL over my pond-they have escaped their containers.  I would like to reduce them as in the middle of the summer they make it hard to see my fish.   Any suggestion???? Thanks again.
Melissa in Upstate NY

Answer
Hello Melissa!
Aquatic Plants do have a tendency to get out of hand if they escape the container and find a foothold somewhere on the pond edge or in some accumulated sludge of the pond bottom.
I am afraid there is no easy solution.
There are, however, a couple of things you can try:
a) Try to find where they rooted and pull out as many of the roots as you can. It is likely you will find them anchored in several places.
b) Try sprinkling some salt DIRECTLY on the leaves of the plant (be careful which salt you use - regular household salt has additives that can be poisonous to the fish. Try kosher, pond or solar salt, make sure it is 100% pure). If the right salt is used it is actually beneficial to the fish and getting it directly on the leaves should pull the moisture out and reduce the vegetation.
Hope that helps!
Brigitte
www.pondmarket.com