Ponds and Water Gardens - Plant Cattails in 1/2 acre pond?

From what I have read here, Cattails can be very difficult to get rid of ?
My nieghbor has a few just at one corner of his pond, and I like the way they look, I have also heard that they are actually edible, and can be cooked up?
I was gonna go dig up a small start from his pond , but maybe that would be a mistake? Thanks for all replys,
RH

I love cattail. That said. It can be difficult/expensive to remove once it gets going so think before you plant it.

I use it in my pond at the infeed end where a creek flows in. It does a great job to slow down the fast moving water of winter/spring floods to dump the silt at that end of the pond. My wife loves to make decorations with the seed heads. It's also a great habitat for minnows and frogs.

Cattail likes shallower water, so you do not have to worry about it in the deeper areas. In the past 5 years it has not grown into water deeper than about 14-16" in my pond.

If you do try cattail and change your mind the quickest way to remove it is with an excavator (ie: dig it out by the roots)(don't bother doing it by hand, you will want diesel power). You can also control it chemically with Sonar (very expensive), Reward (Diquat), Rodeo...

I placed 1 giant cattail in my pond in a planter and it already has feeder shoot growing up from other pots in the pond after about 8+ weeks----I do agree you will need a way to control it if you add it to your pond area.....unless you want/need alot of it over a large area. It does add a nice vertical feature and the pods are neat........