A couple of kits -- who wants to window shop with me?

[Sarcasticshrub]

Hey, Sarcastic Shrub -- I've been reading and feeling pretty good about the savio....

Glad to hear you are doing your homework!

How do you like the savio stuff?
Me likie. Granted I've never used any other system except home made so it's difficult to compare to others on the market.

What did you do about the closed top waterfall unit? How did you disguise it?
I used the cover that came with the unit. Since it does not get opened all that much (maybe a few times per year) I made a chicken wire top that could contain some ground cover & a rock or two. Hides it pretty well. Also, my set up puts the waterfall at the other end of the pond facing my view point so the entire unit is hidden behind driftwood, rock & plants. It's actually is not completely in the ground. Only about 1/3 of it is. The rest is hidden behind the rock & driftwood. I can get to it from behind. The pond was less than a few months old in this picture from last year:

Before the facelift:

How did you disguise yours? I wondered if the rock look covers really blend in well, or if they are glaringly fake?
I definitely think the fake rock looks exactly that way, fake. As I mentioned above, I used the same materials that I used around the pond to hide the not so lovely parts. I'm still finding ways to better hide the gnarly.

It's going to be a work in progress so don't fret about having it perfect out the door. Install the base system, add some plants here and there, then look at how you want to hide some of the not so pretty stuff using natural materials. It will be allot of work but so worth it.

Same pond, just last week:

 

[EricV]

"I made a chicken wire top that could contain some ground cover & a rock or two."

Do you have any photos of how you did this? I'm looking for ideas for concealing my ugly skimmer cover.

 

[bagsmom]

Thanks for the pictures. Pretty pond!!!!!!

I am fascinated by the chicken wire cover idea as well.

 

[Sarcasticshrub]

Sorry no picts of the how to. It's really simple to make though. With the cover on, I put chicken wire (the small hole, not the big hole stuff) over the top, folding it down over the sides about 6" all the way around, cut off the extra. Now pull it off and flip it over. Fold the overhang over itself to be about 2" - 3" high (puts the sharp cut parts into the middle leaving the soft rounded parts exposed) and now you have a cover that can be decorated any way you see fit. I didn't attach it to the cover, its simply sitting on top of it. Once the ground cover and a few large rocks were put on top, the wire didn't budge. Of course when I do need to get into it I simply lift the lid up and move it over to the side. Not perfect but it sure beats the fake rock and the big black box ruining my view. If you look at the first pict above again, you'll notice it was taken at the same down angle as the second pict but the cover on the falls is no longer noticeable in the second pict. Gotta love downed tree limbs.

I've seen others that do something similar with chicken wire but use a mix of goodies to create their own lightweight rock for covering whatever (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=make+your+own+rock). That was more work that I wanted to do, thus the quick -n- dirty chicken wire cover.