Im in Southern California and I havent had any cold weather damage to my water lettuce.. yet. I was just curious about you East Coast ponders... do you remove your letuce in the winter and replace it in the spring? If so - roughtly - when do you re-stock your pond with lettuce?

In areas with real winters such as here in MD, water lettuce has to be removed from the pond each fall or it dies and rots. I tossed the last of mine today in fact but most I took out last week. It can be overwintered indoors but it's not easy, and I've failed the few times I tried. Most of us just buy a few new plants in the spring. I get just about 3 water hyacinth and 3 water lettuce each spring. In the last month, I've tossed out over 100 water hyacinth and probably 30 water lettuce. For some reason, they didn't do as great this year but I've had over 100 in past years.

This year, I put water lettuce in my pond on 4/21/04. It does poorly for about a month before growing as things warm up.