CW's Back Yard Water Garden Begins!

[YShahar]

Rubber ducky for scale.

Now that is a masterpiece! What an inviting place to take a dip!

And those big rocks make it look like it's been there forever. Once the plants fill out, it's going to be ever more stunning!

 

[addy1]

BEAUTIFUL!

 

[combatwombat]

The stream and bridge are (almost) alive.

 

[combatwombat]

 

[Lisak1]

Dude. I just checked the temperature in Hades because I was convinced this would be the day that place froze over!

It looks great!

One prediction - you're going to want to change that edge treatment with your liner - 1. because the mulch will constantly move/shift/break down and you'll go crazy trying to keep it covered (How do I know? I see how meticulous you are. It's an easy guess.) and 2. You're going to want to bring plants up right behind those rocks.

Now you COULD do what I did in one spot (top of our pondless waterfall where the liner laps back up over the top of the spillway) and put in a plastic tray or shallow pan to hold soil and plant directly into that. I have a succulent that has amazingly continued to grow for 12 years in about .25 inches of soil. But honestly, there's nothing like a naturalized pond edge to soften up all the rock.

EXCELLENT job! Now give your wife her side porch back !

 

[GBBUDD]

Got to feel good getting it to a point where it's not looking like an active construction site and a home again. What a change from grass to what you have built , zero comparison.

Odd the girls will go swimming with hundreds of tad poles but not fish hmmm..

Your delemma with the peastone can be a simple one YouTube retarder you pour concrete then sprinkle the peastone atop push it in with a tamp. Apply a retarder the top of the concrete and then you wash it off leaving the embedded peastone. it's a little work but pool side well worth it but one tip FIND the right rock all smooth don't compromise. There are polymers you can add as well to lock it up real good.

I have to agree with Lisa with the mulch. I see how you locked it up but as the kids grow it will be all over and in the pond. I imagine you got mulch that's untreated for rot and pests and some areas even fire.

I would remove the mint though it is easy to pull, but it's very invasive chokes out anything near it.

So secretly the party was for the 4 year old but dad was the one truly enjoying the day looking at his work done and others enjoying it.

If that is close to done then you caught up to me as I was working on the landscaping all weekend. Belgium block Walk way is next.

 

[Jhn]

Great job, as @GBBUDD and @Lisak1 said didn’t think this day would ever get here.

YouTube retarder

this comment can be taken so many ways, and all of them are accurate( at least to me) and since I know who posted it had to read twice to see what you mean…..hahaha

Anyhow, enough nonsense from me, cw has caught up to me as well, think I came up with a hard scape leading up to the pond, from our back deck that I like. Next motivating myself to get the materials and tear up the yard for a fourth time and do it without killing the dogwood tree.

 

[Beercan31]

WOW. Stunning, Beautiful, Gorgeous. A job well done.
I agree with the second thinking of the use of mulch near the edge of the pond. with foot traffic and heavy down pours and wind it will end up in the pond, You will always be netting it out.

Not to go off topic. How did you prep to control the bamboo?

 

[j.w]

@combatwombat HALLELUJAH you've come a long.long way to get where you got to today!

 

[YShahar]

Oh wow! It's looking fantastic! That little stream is a great addition, especially once you've got the porch siding in place. Quite a cool setting for a little girl's birthday party too. Is she swimming in the pond yet?

 

[Hound Heaven]

So much work, such a nice result. One tip - heavenly bamboo will set out runners if it stays damp. Everything looks great - put your feet up for a while.

 

[GBBUDD]

Great job, as @GBBUDD and @Lisak1 said didn’t think this day would ever get here.

this comment can be taken so many ways, and all of them are accurate( at least to me) and since I know who posted it had to read twice to see what you mean…..hahaha

Anyhow, enough nonsense from me, cw has caught up to me as well, think I came up with a hard scape leading up to the pond, from our back deck that I like. Next motivating myself to get the materials and tear up the yard for a fourth time and do it without killing the dogwood tree.

I'm one who refused to look at Facebook . Only reason I did was for the market place. And I have to admittedly I have seen some pretty good deals in there for pavers etc. Actually now that I think about it I think I saw black Belgium blocks in your area. For cheap money . But trucking made it the same as buying it from here

I guess thats really where neglecting a comma really changes the meaning of the sentence huh. Oh well . A good lol

To heck with bringing a deck to the pond bring the pond to the deck. It's been what 4 years since you added on its time to add on . I'm on number 4 addition to the pond you got to catch up.

I know I know make a stream come up to the stairs have it dive under them . Cut a hole in the deck and have water drop from the ceiling of the over hang down into the new stream addition . That will not only be the cats meow but it will keep it cool under there too. Huh huh huh whatcha think...

 

[combatwombat]

Dude. I just checked the temperature in Hades because I was convinced this would be the day that place froze over!

Get out your parka!

One prediction - you're going to want to change that edge treatment with your liner - 1. because the mulch will constantly move/shift/break down and you'll go crazy trying to keep it covered (How do I know? I see how meticulous you are. It's an easy guess.) and 2. You're going to want to bring plants up right behind those rocks.

I do plan to plant the heck out of the edge and a lot of the area where I have arborist chips are just covered until the plants come. Are you saying it's not a good edge treatment between large boulders, though? Like where I have 2 really big rocks that form a V with the tip towards the inside of the pond. I'm not sure what else I would do with that space. I can either 1) fill it with gravel and then transition to mulch outside the liner, but that looks weird/unnatural, 2) fill with gravel and bring that gravel outside the liner to naturalize it, but then you're weeding a gravel bed which isn't fun, or 3) do what I did.

I learned it from Team Aquascape videos so I figured it was a good detail. If you have some other ideas, would love to hear 'em.

Now you COULD do what I did in one spot (top of our pondless waterfall where the liner laps back up over the top of the spillway) and put in a plastic tray or shallow pan to hold soil and plant directly into that.

Ah, I could do exactly that. The foamed in bib liner is basically a shallow pan. I could fill it with an inch or two of soil and see what kind of desert-happy plants I could grow there.

EXCELLENT job! Now give your wife her side porch back !

The side porch is, like, 1 of 6 projects she's already "reminding" me about!

 

[combatwombat]

Got to feel good getting it to a point where it's not looking like an active construction site and a home again. What a change from grass to what you have built , zero comparison.

Thanks. Feels great. Even though the pond has been 90% done for over a year, that last 10% is what you really see. My wife wanted me to "hide the liner" before the birthday party and there was one big spot along the patio where I really couldn't figure out a good way to do that without just building the stream, so I went for it. Knocked the whole thing out in like 2 afternoons.

Odd the girls will go swimming with hundreds of tad poles but not fish hmmm..

I am very away of this inconsistency and I poke at it regularly.

Your delemma with the peastone can be a simple one YouTube retarder you pour concrete then sprinkle the peastone atop push it in with a tamp. Apply a retarder the top of the concrete and then you wash it off leaving the embedded peastone. it's a little work but pool side well worth it but one tip FIND the right rock all smooth don't compromise. There are polymers you can add as well to lock it up real good.

Concrete may be the final solution. It's less scary to me now after buying a mixer and placing the pavers in the front. Wanted to do a sand finish there, but didn't feel confident trying it on a first concrete project. Maybe the second one...

So secretly the party was for the 4 year old but dad was the one truly enjoying the day looking at his work done and others enjoying it.

I was mostly making sure no preschoolers I just met drowned in the pond in front of their parents. But it was fun showing it off to the adults.

 

[combatwombat]

Not to go off topic. How did you prep to control the bamboo?

Biggest prep was just species selection. I chose fagesia robusta, which is a clumping bamboo. It's not a super tight clumper, but it doesn't send out runners. I also placed a root barrier in the trench I dug when planting against the fence to encourage it to spend more energy growing towards the yard rather than towards the fence. So far, almost all of the 50 clumps I planted have respected the barrier.

I am keeping my eye on the ones behind the wetland, though. Wetland ended up a bit closer to the fence than I'd initially planned, so bamboo there might end up pinched between the root barrier and the liner. If it becomes a problem, there are 5 plants I may have to remove. Everywhere else, the bamboo should be plenty far enough away from the liner.