Pretty and edible. LOVE it! Pond plants tend to have a pondy taste to me. Have you tried any yet?

Here are my cattails and yellow canna, both native to florida as is the pickerelweed. Interestingly enough all parts of both plants are edible although I have no idea how you would prepare them. I just if I ever run out of food I could just raid the pond! lol After some research I found that cattails are a very versital plant. Here's some of the things I found listed on a website that cattails can be used for.

"All parts of the cattail plant are edible. American Indians prepared the different parts in many ways. The leaves of Common Cattail are used to weave baskets, chair seats, and mats.
People sometimes plant cattails along the shores of water to prevent erosion.
The fluffy seeds are used as insulation for pillows and coats.
An adhesive (glue) can be made from the stems.
The pollen is sometimes used in fireworks."

I'll post a picture of the canna's flower as soon as I can get a picture of one that hasn't been beat up by the rain.

Haven't tried to eat any of the pond plants yet, I only discovered that the pickerelweed was edible yesterday. I'd known that the canna and cattail were edible for a while now but haven't tried to eat them either.

Here's an overall picture of the pond. The parrots feather and lilies are so thick this year that you can't see much of the water. I've been having to trim back the parrots feather at one end of the pond so that I can see the fish and feed them. The plus side to all that parrot feather is it's supposed to be a favorite food for koi.

All your plants look very lush, Karalynn.

The pickerelweed grows very quickly and jumps out of any pots and scoots across the pond bottom. The photo is of a preformed pond in my PA garden. I cut the stalks off the plants every year in the fall before a hard freeze, but it comes back like crazy in the spring. Every couple of years I try to thin it by pulling some out--it has very tough, fibrous roots so not an easy job. Looks like I need to work on it this year.
Marcia

Lovely plants, everyone. As for cattails, recently I was lucky enough to take a foraging class with Green Deane from Eattheweeds.com, and he spent a long time talking about all the ways you can use cattails.

Here is a link that might be useful: cattails at eattheweeds

That is a really interesting website. There are more edible plants growing in my yard then I had realized!