I am from OK also, and I always had excellent luck with it, to the point
that I had to pull it out all the time and put in the compost pile all
through the summer. Eventually I stopped buying my one usual plant every
spring and went with water celery contained in a Rubbermaid tote where the
water from one of the cascades drops into the middle of it.

The water celery is great because is comes back every year. My water
hyacinth roots would get 18 inches long and were always messy to when I
pulled them out because of everything that they caught as the water flowed
through them.

The other problem with the WH was that it competed with the water lilies, so
that is another reason I went with the water celery.

A friend would aways come and get WH from me for his ponds thinking that
mine had something special going for them, but they very quickly started
looking just like his. It was decided that the WH did so badly in his pond
because the 3 KOI that he had kept the roots eaten off short. I have only
Goldfish and they do not bother the roots. So if you are not having good
luck with the WH, it may be do to KOI, if you have them. Like I said my WH
would have a root system 18 inches long or longer and would have a root mass
diameter of about 6 inches when pulled out of the pond, while his had just
clumpy little roots on the bottom of the plants. We deduced that the large
root system was necessary for huge vibrant plants, at least around here.

Tom L.L.
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"LRobi31070" wrote in message
...
I live in OK and it doesnt keep over winter either. I dont have great
luck
with it, but my friend down the highway does! Location, location, is
right!