Berm construction
- Thread starter Smithbill
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Welcome Bill. A few photos will help us advise you.
Mmathis
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Hello and welcome! The berm was a big concern for me, as well. Everyone has his/her own ideas, so you'll probably have to sort through any info you find to get what suits you best.
First of all, what kind of liner do you have? Is your pond a pre-fab, or do you have a liner in place? And if you have a liner, do you have some excess liner material around the perimeter? And if you do have excess liner, how much is there?
Let's get the answers to these questions before going any further.
EDIT: You can also do a search here on GPF and see what pops up!
First of all, what kind of liner do you have? Is your pond a pre-fab, or do you have a liner in place? And if you have a liner, do you have some excess liner material around the perimeter? And if you do have excess liner, how much is there?
Let's get the answers to these questions before going any further.
EDIT: You can also do a search here on GPF and see what pops up!
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Welcome to our group! One of my berms was a two inch layer of soil, around 10 inches wide, placed along the edge of the pond. That was all I needed to keep run off out of the pond. It was enough to divert the water around the upper edge of the pond. My pond is on a slope, my problem was the up slope edge.
Yup - berm construction will depend entirely upon your existing situation. Show us what you've got and we'll throw some ideas at you!
pond started as a prefab winter before last and lifted up out of the hole. And cracked. We purchased a liner from a hardware store and lost all of our goldfish after installing this liner. Now we went to a pond supply store and bought a better grade liner with as much as 2 ft extra liner around the perimeter for the next install. I feel the berm may keep the runoff from getting into the pond water and need guidelines for constructing one. THanks for your help, smithbill
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Ok, well that helps some. We don't have a "berm" per se around our pond. We constructed a shelf that is about 6-8" deep all the way around the pond and wide enough to hold a good sized rock. We then chose rocks that were 10" or more tall and placed those on the shelf. The liner comes up behind the back of the rock, is folded under several times and then pressed up against the back of the rock. We backfilled with dirt up to the edge of the folded liner. So there is a slight slope off the back of the rock to the ground level, but not enough to call it a berm. The top of the folded liner is always kept above water level. We have plants planted on both sides of the rocks - on the water side between the rocks and on the land side behind the rocks. The plants create a natural barrier to keep debris from being washed into the pond (the paths around the pond are mainly mulched right now - working on a stone path in the near future) and the slight slope as well as the rocks around the pond keeps run off from entering the pond.
So that's one way to do it! I'm sure others will chime in here soon!
So that's one way to do it! I'm sure others will chime in here soon!
Mmathis
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My berm is extreme for 2 reasons: 1) our soil is clay and we have a high water table -- I wanted a berm that wouldn't eventually collapse or slide back into the pond [which it did with the initial build]; and 2) I wanted the pond to be very slightly above ground level -- for same reasons, and for same problem you had with pre-fab floating.
I'll include a picture of what I did with a reconstruction, just for an idea, but basically you can pile dirt up [not sand, though] around the edge of your pond to whatever height you like -- 3"-6", compact that well, then pull the liner over this. Then use rocks on the backside to hold the liner down. Or, some people have used something along the lines of landscape timbers around the edge, pulling the liner over them. You mainly are looking for anything that forms a "lip" to keep the pond water in and the yard water out. And you want to be sure that whatever method you use, that it's level all around.
In the pic I'm posting [landscaping and hardscaping still a work in progress, so excuse the mess], I used cinder blocks [to construct a collar] around the pond, then piled dirt -- lots of dirt! -- behind [not on the pond-side] the blocks and compacted that. We had plenty of liner for this, and it gave me a nice wide, raised berm, but like I said, mine is extreme.
Hope this information helps you.
I'll include a picture of what I did with a reconstruction, just for an idea, but basically you can pile dirt up [not sand, though] around the edge of your pond to whatever height you like -- 3"-6", compact that well, then pull the liner over this. Then use rocks on the backside to hold the liner down. Or, some people have used something along the lines of landscape timbers around the edge, pulling the liner over them. You mainly are looking for anything that forms a "lip" to keep the pond water in and the yard water out. And you want to be sure that whatever method you use, that it's level all around.
In the pic I'm posting [landscaping and hardscaping still a work in progress, so excuse the mess], I used cinder blocks [to construct a collar] around the pond, then piled dirt -- lots of dirt! -- behind [not on the pond-side] the blocks and compacted that. We had plenty of liner for this, and it gave me a nice wide, raised berm, but like I said, mine is extreme.
Hope this information helps you.