Ideas for making this waterfall not look so man made

[Pond skipper]

I used landscape stakes to create a silt fence to help stabilize the mound of dirt under the rocks (it's only maybe 2' tall anyway). It's in a U shape behind the pond, keeping the mound from spreading and away from the fence enough to walk around behind it. I backed up the woven landscape fabric with galvanized chicken wire and I'm going to replace those stakes with rebar this summer to make it a little sturdier/more permanent.
Maybe put the barrel behind the tree (from the perspective of your first photo), and then put up a simple fence (like the reed stuff I used around my bog) between the tree and the shed to shield that side. You can have an entrance for easy access to the barrel, and eventually grow plants in front of the fence to blend it all in.

That’s some solid advice. Thanks! That may be the best and possibly only option I have to transition between pond and shed.

 

[GBBUDD]

skip to 1:05

 

[GBBUDD]

@YShahar nice job . Looks fantastic how long did that take you was it photo shop?

 

[YShahar]

@YShahar nice job . Looks fantastic how long did that take you was it photo shop?

It took me about half an hour, but most of that time was getting the file size down so that the forum would accept it. Amazing what you can do when you're procrastinating from your real job, eh? ;-)

 

[GBBUDD]

Lol I hear yeah . That's why I'd love to do ponds. I know the draw back to sun beating down on you as well as rainy days

 

[YShahar]

OMG !!! How did you do that, it wasn’t until looking at this five times that I realized you’ve done that somehow to my photo, it was when I noticed the birds feeder I realized it! And you’ve managed to capture exactly what I visualize in my minds eye when I dream about my pond.

I just grabbed a photo from the Aquascape site and did a bit of photoshopping!

Unfortunately I don’t have the money or the ability to have rocks of that size but I’m definitely going to try and play with the perspective as you mentioned.. I’ll pretend I’m one of the Disney imagineers building Disneyland! I do have quite a bit of l extra liner tucked behind the pond (I’m always afraid to cut it off and make things permanent). Good thing!

It's fairly easy to overlap the stream liner over your pond liner. Ideally, you want at least 15-20 cm drop in height where the overlap is, to prevent water from sneaking up between the liners via capillary action.

Most of the rocks in my own build are from the dig itself, or rocks I scrounged. You can check FaceBook Marketplace or other such places. Sometimes people are giving away rocks, provided you come and dig them out. Being a bit on the financially-challenged side myself, I've done a fair bit of rock scrounging!

If lifting heavy rocks is an issue (I hear you - I'm a fairly small 60 year-old female type), then you may be able to make some faux rocks using chicken wire and cement. Lots of videos on youTube on how to do this. Haven't tried it myself, but it's on my list!

I can definitely lower the back and stretch it out a bit although I don’t know how I’ll transition from stream to regular old back yard between there and the shed where the ground level would still be quite a bit lower. But you’ve definitely given me the germ of an idea. Thanks, and you’ll have to fill me in how you did that magic with the photo! Lol thanks again

You can cheat by building the bog area up using a cinderblock wall, then just use rocks along the outside. The inside can stay at the same level it's at now. Just get some old milk crates, turn them over and zip-tie them together, and use them to make a void space at the bottom. The top of the cinderblock wall will dictate how high the top cascade is. Just make it about 50 cm or so higher than the pond, and you'll have room for a lovely meandering stream. Here too, you can cheat by using cinderblock to make your steps. Just make sure to use an angle grinder to smooth the sharp edges of the cinderblocks so they won't slice your liner.

And yes, photoshop is magical!

 

[Pond skipper]

The main spillway into the pond and the rock to either side of it.

View attachment 158561

Ok, I was thinking you meant back farther. Although I don’t have the framing ones in place yet my spillway is done essentially the same way, there is a small pool made from line that barrel falls into and then the liner overlaps the flat rock that forms the spillway.

 

[RMaynard]

Crude drawing... Black=Liner, Blue= water, brown= rocks, blue=water. I used dirt and sand to create the structure under the liner.

 

[Pond skipper]

Thanks for all the ideas. I’m done my building now for this year, still have a leak in the bog even after completely re lining it. It’sa head scratcher for sure. Anyway, these are a couple of pics of this years version of my pond. Still some more planting to do and want some more lilies, water hyacinth and such but it’s almost there…. Oops, just noticed in one of those pictures one of the rocks in the spillway has moved. Nothing will stuck to any of my rocks, not even waterfall foam or silicon.

 

[RMaynard]

Looks good!

 

[YShahar]

Looks nice! Well done!

 

[Pond skipper]

Thanks! . Looking at the pictures I posted I did notice a couple of little tweaks I’m going to make on the waterfall spillway. (That diverging look of the border rocks isn’t rocking my world! ) pun totally intended!

 

[GBBUDD]

i'd be willing to bet its the liner over lap between the bog and stream pond where your leak is

 

[Pond skipper]

You’d think. right? But with the stream/waterfall running there doesn’t seem to be any leak. But it is a completely separate piece of liner that forms the stream/pond/waterfall. The bog/main pond liner is one piece. However when it started leaking I traced it to the bog but couldn’t find any problems so I put a whole new piece of liner in the bog over the original one.