Duckweeds (subfamily Lemnoideae) are among the smallest and fastest-growing vascular plants on Earth. These free-floating species can rapidly cover the surface of a pond, reducing light and creating hypoxic conditions in the water column, and we predicted these conditions would result in slower organic matter breakdown. To explore this, plastic mesh litter bags containing sugar maple (Acer saccharum) wood or leaf litter were deployed in six small peri-urban ponds near Louisville, Kentucky—three with persistent duckweed cover and three without. Four bags of wood and two bags of leaf litter were retrieved on six dates over a five-month incubation period, during which time dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, and floating duckweed biomass were monitored at each site. Decomposition was quantified as the change in the percentage of dry mass remaining over time. A generalized linear mixed-effects modeling approach was used to identify environmental and structural factors influencing decomposition. Leaf litter decomposed more rapidly than wood in both pond types (p = 2.2e-16)), litter material did not decompose significantly between groups, despite significantly lower dissolved oxygen (p= 8.1e-5) and moderately lower temperatures in duckweed covered ponds. Temperature had a significant effect on decomposition (p = 0.038) while DO and pH did not. This work improves our understanding of how floating vegetation influences organic matter processing and carbon cycling in small wetland ecosystems.