Reconstructing/revamping shelves 17 year old pond + plants? (newbie)

[GBBUDD]

All to often as mentioned whetn someone builds a waterfall they all to often build up a pile of rocks and work the water down the slope. This usually creates a volcano look.
There are several ways to remove this look build up the soils created berm around it or an even easier way about it is to plant some vegetation that growns taller so if you have a 4 foot falls plant a 3 foot tall bush/ plant etc or taller around the falls. So now you have more height along side the falls.
The issue then is controing the splash nd nt letting it etc outside thee liner

 

[Duxwig]

so a berm which is more long flat on top as a hill vs slanting/volcano?

Either way What’s the max height you would make this thing?

 

[combatwombat]

so a berm which is more long flat on top as a hill vs slanting/volcano?

Either way What’s the max height you would make this thing?

A natural looking berm will be 4-5x as wide as it is tall. So whatever amount of width you can give to your berm, divide that by 4 and that's about the max height you can achieve while still keeping it looking natural. If you want something higher, you can employ retaining walls at the rear of the berm. If you plant it up really well, it can blend in and look good.

Also, a good looking berm is usually steeper on one side than another. So the steep end would face your pond to create the falls and then fan out in the back.

 

[brokensword]

Nothing too spectacular but this is the view from one corner of the dining room. (Don’t mind the trampled and cut - making Reno room).
In my mind, there’s just so many possibilities to make that area more interesting than just the tiny tide pool entrance the prev owners had as a starter.

Opening the window, drinking coffee, nice morning, relaxing with a working beautiful planty pond=
(As added historical the 1st owners also had a hot tub on this concrete slab along side the pond. Sounds wonderful)
View attachment 143003

This pic and some further clarification really helps! I understand now, better, what you're trying to do. So, I'd definitely build up the back with a berm and I'd add some 4-6' shrubs/trees behind it; that'll dissipate what that fence is doing to your pond area, imo. Nothing wrong with having a tube of water erupt out of a jumble of rock and flow down to the pond. But most want the waterfall (definitely something I wanted for sure), its look and sound especially. A lot here has to do with your landscaping AFTER you build your falls, imo. You can take away the 'hill' look by adding large background rocks (give them 1/3-1/2 buried look) and plants that complement your other landscaping.

I know you want specifics re numbers but I think here, in this case, I REALLY think this would be good for you to just sort of wing it. Not totally but you'll learn a LOT about what type/look waterfall you really want. Pics of others helps and I'd find one you like and try to model it, but it builds character as YOU build your waterfall. There, now didn't I sound just like a dad??? But it's true, you'll build 'pond character' and what you end up with probably won't be the final version but it'll then spur you to tweak in the future to get exactly what you like. And realize, tweaking might indeed mean rebuilding, so, don't go making anything THAT permanent that it's a pita to unbuild. My waterfalls are just rocks laid overtop solid concrete slabs (4x8x16) laid on an extra piece of liner. What you do with the facia rocks then won't make or break your waterfall as the sub-structure will still be there. For a weir, I took a plastic file bin and cut a 'edge' out that I heat-gunned down into perpendicular position. The water enters the back near the bottom using bulkhead fittings. The top (of the file bin) I put back on and stacked my flat rocks on that. To help soften and hide this area, that's where the plants (hostas, creeping jenny) emerge from the back of the bowl and protrude out and over the top of my falls. This is easy to do and again, naturalizes.

Good Luck! Post pics as you go but don't get either too high or low until you finish and actually have it working for a month, just to see how it looks to you.

(looking at your pic again, even if you did nothing, I'd still opt for 4-6' trees/plants/shrubs to help out your coffee-moment view! Get something that flowers, stays manageable, and is not too aggressive re roots and such!) Taller plants like day lilies, iris, butterfly bush work great, too.

 

[Duxwig]

Went to the quarry today to look at rocks. Appears I’ll be limited to ~18” stones. Atlas stoning 24” wasn’t really going to happen more than once so scrapping that. May call and ask them delivery price and maybe do some pvc rolling to the back.

Marked off some 12, 24, 36” markings and one 18/24”. Based on diameter and visualizing, think I’m not going higher than 2 feet and still makes me ponder. There is a slight mound of dirt on back side the 18/24 is in I need to flatten or account for height.

Also spent a good while using the HACKSAW on all the iris mounds. That stuff was indestructible to shovel, trowel, putty knife, and edger. Still had to take it out in small chunks. Read about rhizomes tonight and realize I need to go waaaaaaaay lower if I want to kill them off.

They were also really unmaintained, the soil/roots overcame the liner. The blue line is where I found the liner, about 2-3” down, under the iris mounds growing In.

 

[combatwombat]

For 18-24” rocks, a hand truck with inflatable tires works nicely. If you have hard/flat ground or plywood you can lay down, then one with the little hard wheels will work, too.

 

[addy1]

It will look wonderful when you are done, it starts to come together and there is always tweaking!

My pond and bog are built on a berm, had to build up the downhill side and dig down the uphill side to make a flat spot. It now looks natural...............mostly lol.
A berm can make a great waterfall as said above, the main thing that helps is not just having a big mountain pop out of the land. Have rocks plants blend it out into the yard.

 

[Duxwig]

For 18-24” rocks, a hand truck with inflatable tires works nicely. If you have hard/flat ground or plywood you can lay down, then one with the little hard wheels will work, too.

The diameter of the area is 35” so it eats tons of room is other problem.
Thought about putting 2-3 similar squareish rocks on the border of the river to make a wall, some dirt on top like a table, backside dirt and retain wall to make a level spot to start the falls.

After rocking I just couldn’t see how the big rock “wall” would look ok. 2nd idea was getting longer flatter stones with less girth to set like drywall with dirt/retainer behind and under for appearance as deeper into the “berm” but allow handling and space.

Think that vision may just look bad or very unnatural.
If I get any 24” I feel like I may just put them as accents in garden.

 

[Duxwig]

I’m pretty sure I convinced myself to only do a berm of 2’ also with all the space considerations, so…there’s that lol

 

[combatwombat]

You can get a gorgeous waterfall in 2’ off elevation change.

 

[Duxwig]

You can get a gorgeous waterfall in 2’ off elevation change.

Thanks for the support and confidence. Usually the whole own worst critic thing. Plus I like to shoot for the stars lol.
Thanks to everyone also along the way so far.

Great forum.

 

[combatwombat]

For reference, here's a video where the Aquascape guys build a really attractive pondless waterfall with about 12" of elevation change:

 

[bagsmom]

While i can agree with part of your statement that there's no set rules to the shelves there are set guide lines tot he shelves in the photo below i did not make the shelves stay at one level and circle around the pond. i made them only cover a small portion of the level and they are different widths heights and even on slight angles. this is what i see as a more natural look . and that is important to me over a formal strand of pearls. per say. And the rocks DO set the shelves more then an idea should You don't want to build a 6 inch wide shelf if you have 12" wide rocks. and you should always keep in mind what is going to hold this rock in place often digging a small trench or angling a shelf back is the best route as when the pond is lined the rocks can be held in place by a depression. so if you place rocks on a shelf are the rocks large enough to poke up higher then the shelf above to as the rocks are placed will they act like a stop a border to keep the gravel in place. this is a video of the final product to help give an idea what the rock on shelves can look like and not a level circle around the pond. the vertical walls i always had pitched back toward the higher side to any boulders could lean back and not want to roll over onto someone in the water. The vide and the photo are taken from the same spot for reference View attachment 142069 .

GBUDD - you are so right about the perfectly level shelves all around not looking as natural. I had never thought of this till you pointed it out! I learn something new in this forum every time I read!!!!!

 

[bagsmom]

This is going to be so pretty! Is there a reason you don't want fish? They don't require much of anything and can really help with the whole nitrogen cycle - which makes for healthy plants. Many of us don't even feed our fish, except now and then for fun. I just mention that in case you think they add a lot of work to pond keeping. Either way - this is a really nice looking pond. I can't wait to see it completed!

 

[Duxwig]

For reference, here's a video where the Aquascape guys build a really attractive pondless waterfall with about 12" of elevation change:

Makes me second guess the 18” and maybe do only 12’s and have more room.
Or what maybe I’m taking - smaller diameter at top and bigger boulders more on bottom? May be easy to slip a few here there and give myself more room to play.