Do you know what's lurking in your garden pond? OK, so it may well be frozen over right now, but have a look at the pictures above. See anything familiar? Although I think I could just about identify parrot's feather, having spent ages fishing it out of my own pond, but I wouldn't have had a clue about the others.

The government's new Be Plant Wise campaign (or scotland.gov.uk/beplantwise if you're in Scotland) is warning that five non-native aquatic bullies - floating pennywort, New Zealand pigmyweed, water-primrose, parrot's feather and water fern – are invading British waterways, wiping out native species and disrupting water sports and boating.

Water pennywort is choking Britain's waterways. Photograph: Getty

According to the charity Pond Conservation, two thirds of our garden ponds are harbouring one or more of these species (In wild ponds the figure drops to one in 10.) They can grow at a prodigious rate, too floating pennywort can grow up to 20cm a day in the wild and water primrose can double in size every 15-20 days, choking patches of water and crowding out native species. For instance, an infestation of New Zealand pigmyweed at the National Trust-owned Horsepond in Corfe Castle, Dorset is blamed for the loss of the great crested newt in that area. Another perhaps less obvious peril is that a thick mat of pennywort or water primrose on the surface of a pond can look like a solid surface to livestock (and your own children, come to that).

Even if your pond's in glorious isolation in your back garden miles from the nearest waterway, there are many ways these pernicious little devils can spread, particularly if you dispose of plants and pond or fish tank water carelessly. If you want to eradicate non-native plants from your plant, the compost heap seems the obvious place, but you need to make sure that the plant is absolutely dead and no fragments are left to spread themselves about. With land-based pernicious weeds, I'd usually recommend immersing them in a bucket of water for several months before composting, but clearly that isn't going to work for aquatic plants.

If you wait until the summer, you could remove the plants and spread them out in the baking sun next to the pond (hard to imagine right now, I know) which may also allow any creatures hiding within to escape back into the water, too. Once dry and dessicated, adding them to the centre of a hot compost heap should finish the job. I did wonder about adding them to your green waste bin, as municipal-scale composting techniques should kill such plants off with ease but I'm still trying to find out if that's permitted – I'll update this post once I find out.

Update: Jeremy Iles of Pond Conservation who said he doesn't see why invasive pond plants shouldn't be disposed of in municipal compost schemes. He also poured cold water (excuse the pun) on the idea that leaving plant material you fish out on the ground next to your pond will allow creatures to escape back into the water. Newt larvae, mayflies, caddis and other soft-bodied pond dwellers can't move about on dry land unsupported by water, and even if they could, their habitat won't be there any more. "It's a kind and sympathetic idea but in reality it's probably only putting off the inevitable," he says.

Do you know what plants are growing in your pond? What's the best way of disposing of non-native invasive species like the water primrose? Have your say in the comments below.