Waterfall vs. Fountain

[RobAmy]

My hubby built me a stainless steel tank where the water comes up from the side/bottom through a hole where the hose tubing connects.
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Wow, first rate work. Nice job hubby

 

[j.w]

I'll tell him you all liked it. He will smile

 

[snoozer]

My water fall doesn't have a back side. It spills from a pond at the top of a berm that we built with 120 yards of dirt that we had hauled in and yes we are crazy. The yard slopes away from the house and I wanted to be able to look out of the windows and see the waterfall. One day I will post pictures.

 

[tbendl]

LOL, wow 120 yards of dirt!?! And jw, unless I can knit the same thing you've got, I'm kinda screwed. Although I do have a large plastic garden pot that I might be able to make work. Then I could surround it with rocks as well.

 

[Lisak1]

You're talking about what I think is one of the most challenging aspects of building a garden pond in a small yard or small space - how to make the waterfall and berm look like it's more than a pile of rocks that appeared out of nowhere. We were lucky - we started our bog/waterfall area in a raised bed portion of our yard, so the height was already naturally occurring.

j.w.'s is a beautiful example that works really, really well. I think one reason it works is that she continues the theme with her cobble path and rock walls. If that backed up to grass I'm not sure it would look as natural as it does in her setting.

You could plant the back of the berm - either right down the slope, or terrace it if that works better in your situation. You could also use a few really large boulders instead of small (or "hand") boulders - you may need help placing them, but then you could plant between the rocks and soften the whole look.

Here's a couple of examples of what I mean - on probably a much larger scale than you are talking about, but you get the idea. Neither of these are my pictures - I borrowed them directly from the Internets. And you're right - finding pictures of "waterfall butts" is not easy! People - be proud of your butts!!

 

[tbendl]

Exactly Lisak1, I want it to blend and just can't seem to find any good images to get a good visual in my brain of how to set it up. Send me your waterbutt pictures!! Lol

 

[Lisak1]

How much space are we talking about?

 

[tbendl]

The pond sits about 6 feet away from my fence line where I plan on putting the waterfall and will sit on a sandy table that gradually drops to the yard by about a foot.

 

[sissy]

I used retaining wall block .Had to build the whole pond up because I could not dig any deeper and wanted it near the front porch .A planter filter is always pretty and growing plants in the filter help cover it ,my filter is in there hiding

 

[tbendl]

I like the look of that sissy, thanks for sharing. I have more rough rock around the property but thing I can do a variation on yours with rough rock and little planter areas. Or it'll look like crap and I just won't share waterbutt pictures... lol

 

[sissy]

I got a lot of my rocks from local streams .A pile of dirt some plants and mulch .You can put one of the grasses in the top of the pot ,but you will have to trim the roots often .The plant will help eat up al the bad stuff from the pond

 

[snoozer]

Here are a couple of pictures when we were building. We started digging when I had the bright idea of building a water fall. My son borrowed a skid loader to move and compact the dirt. We ended up with 6 truck loads and a skid loader really compacts dirt. You can see the falls cut from the berm. Where the wheel barrow is sitting was dug out for the header pond. The large rock is sitting on what had been the level of the yard, everything behind them was hauled in. The picture of the falls is from the first year, it looks so empty, it's a jundgle now. The stream follows the berm to the right to the other end of the pond.

 

[tbendl]

Wow Snoozer you guys did a beautiful job, it looks wonderful.

 

[j.w]

Yep snoozer that is a great looking waterfall and pond! Did you just use a liner as your bowl for the falls or?

 

[snoozer]

Yup we used liner for the header pond which is about 3x5 and 18 inches deep. I have some iris in there amongst the large rocks ans also have water hyacinth.