Garden gone wild

We decided to add some plants to our fish pond last spring.  We chose two water lilies and one purple blooming pickerelweed.  Note the last four letters in the name!

Good new:  the purple blooms attract butterflies.  They cannot stay away from them.  While we enjoyed watching the butterflies on the blooms, we could not help but notice that the pickerWEED was taking over the fish pond.  It was HUGE, and did not stop growing. 

We decided to put an early end to the plant before the first frost killed it and we were left with a HUGE soggie plant. 

To put things in perspective this is the pot the plant came in when we bought it.

Who could have guessed?  They could have posted a disclaimer on it ...let the buyer beware.

As we lifted, pulled, tugged the plant from the fish pond the water level fell several inches.  The pickerWEED filled the wheel barrel. 

The water lillies still fill the fish pond but the gold fish and frogs were so happy to be able to swim again.  We will tackle the water lilly removal later.