Building a Pond in Chicago Area - Advice Gladly Taken

[Lisak1]

If you don't mind a bit of a drive, Chicago Brick and Stone iin Lemont s an excellent place to look at rocks. They know a bit about pond building too.

 

[EricV]

If you don't mind a bit of a drive, Chicago Brick and Stone iin Lemont s an excellent place to look at rocks. They know a bit about pond building too.

Thanks. I would not have guessed. Their website looks like they only do home exteriors. I'm in north Aurora, so Lemont and Illinois Landscapeing in Plainfield are not too far away,

 

[RobAmy]

Great job

 

[DrellDrell]

Making progress today.

 

[MitchM]

Looking good, but I don't see where you're incorporating a berm to prevent runoff into the pond.

 

[DrellDrell]

Here is a current pic. Making what I think is good progress thanks to all the help for this forum and a ton of research. I added a 3" berm about the entire pond with the exception of the back. You can see it a bit in the pics just under the edges of the liner. The berm goes up to about 15" just behind the waterfall. We also added landscaping trim to the left and right of the pond. We will add rocks and/or mulch to fill in the ground area. So, overall, I think I have a good runoff prevention in place. I also have a bit of headroom for heavy rains. Otherwise, the pond will overflow towards the garage into a plant bed.

Tomorrow (weather permitting) I will connect the liner to waterfall and start the skimmer filter.

It is going to be interesting to see how the waterfall operates. We have large "frame rocks" to the left and right of the waterfall and a bluestone piece (12" by 24") at the base. We will add 3" to 4" rocks just above the bluestone. I am guessing the water will simply flow downward and not beyond the left or right of the "frame rocks" that I have. Otherwise, I am going to use spray foam made for ponds to direct the water where I want it to go.

Finally, we will add more rocks to the front section of the pond or going over the top of the 15" berm.

I am curious if any of you use anything to glue or otherwise, fasten your rocks together. I am using gravity or friction fits for everything now and I seems to be holding.

 

[addy1]

glue or otherwise, fasten your rocks together.

I dry stacked mine. Some on here have used mortar. To direct water flow I have used pond foam, in some of my waterfall and stream rocks, to make the water go over the rocks rather than under.

 

[Lisak1]

I wanted to add that we have no "true" berm around our pond. The water level was designed to be at ground level. We used our rock edge to create the berm effect. Our first shelf is 10" deep, so all the rocks on that level are 12" or more in depth, and much of the rock sits below the water line with anywhere from 2" to 6" above the water line. We then folded the excess liner down behind that rock (on the land side) and backfilled up to the liner. The folded liner extends just slightly above the water line. We have plants (various types of ground cover mainly, interspersed with other perennials) that completely surround the pond. The combination of the plants and the rocks forms a barrier that keeps any ground water from being running into the pond. But the ground and the water are on the same level.

Most of the ponds we've seen built in our area utilize this edge technique. It does require the use of larger rocks, though, (boulders really) so if you plan to use smaller rocks around your pond edge you'd need a berm for sure.

 

[michey1st]

I wanted to add that we have no "true" berm around our pond. The water level was designed to be at ground level. We used our rock edge to create the berm effect. Our first shelf is 10" deep, so all the rocks on that level are 12" or more in depth, and much of the rock sits below the water line with anywhere from 2" to 6" above the water line. We then folded the excess liner down behind that rock (on the land side) and backfilled up to the liner. The folded liner extends just slightly above the water line.

Hi Lisa! Do you have any problems with water wicking up the creases in your liner and over the edge into the soil? I've had problems with that in the past and am wondering how to mitigate that from happening with my new build. Wondering if a dab of foam at each crease is the answer?

 

[DrellDrell]

I wanted to add that we have no "true" berm around our pond. The water level was designed to be at ground level. We used our rock edge to create the berm effect. Our first shelf is 10" deep, so all the rocks on that level are 12" or more in depth, and much of the rock sits below the water line with anywhere from 2" to 6" above the water line. We then folded the excess liner down behind that rock (on the land side) and backfilled up to the liner. The folded liner extends just slightly above the water line. We have plants (various types of ground cover mainly, interspersed with other perennials) that completely surround the pond. The combination of the plants and the rocks forms a barrier that keeps any ground water from being running into the pond. But the ground and the water are on the same level.

Most of the ponds we've seen built in our area utilize this edge technique. It does require the use of larger rocks, though, (boulders really) so if you plan to use smaller rocks around your pond edge you'd need a berm for sure.

Thanks for the reply. Can you explain your underground rain storage?

 

[DrellDrell]

I dry stacked mine. Some on here have used mortar. To direct water flow I have used pond foam, in some of my waterfall and stream rocks, to make the water go over the rocks rather than under.

Thanks. I think I will use the foam only to may sure water is directed in a manner to create the best waterfall. After thinking about it, I am not sure I want to use mortar on the other rocks. I like the idea of being able to adjust rocks over time. The dry stacking appears to be working for me.

 

[Lisak1]

Hi Lisa! Do you have any problems with water wicking up the creases in your liner and over the edge into the soil?

We don't, no. I was concerned about it but it proved to be an unfounded concern in our case.

 

[Lisak1]

Can you explain your underground rain storage?

Sure! We have a negative edge pond that flows into a "reverse bog". The pit itself is 6 feet deep (and I think 10x10 if memory serves) and is filled with Aquablox - the purpose is to create space that can hold more water than a pit filled with gravel or rock. The top 12" or so is gravel. The portion that's visible is actually only about 4ft x4ft - the rest is covered with dirt and you would never know that directly beneath you is 1000 gallons of water. This also serves as our skimmer, so larger debris is caught at the top of the gravel as the water flows through. We rake it out or pick it up by hand, depending on what it is. Our submersible pump is in a vault that sits in the pit. So the water flows over the edge of the pond, through the gravel, into the rain exchange where the pump lives and gets pumped back up to the up flow bog where it feeds the main waterfall.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, I probably should have lead with this:

This photo is oddly elongated, but you get the idea. You are looking straight at the end of the pond. The gravel you see is the "reverse bog". We grow plants directly in the gravel - those are hostas on the right that were scrawny little pieces leftover from some transplants so I thought "what the heck - I'll try them here". They have grown like crazy. To the left, under the gray pot (behind the blue one) you can just make out the vault lid. So the pit extends that far to the left and then beyond the stone wall on the right almost to the grass you can just barely see. And that's all full of water - most of the time. When we have a dry spell, we sometimes have to add water, but generally the water that we store gets us through without having to add a lot of water. We plumbed our sump pump to empty into the pit as well, so we capture as much rain water as we can. We also installed an overflow pipe that drains to the storm sewer - that's come in handy a few times when we got so much rainwater the rain exchange was full to the top. We regret not making the storage area bigger. But that would have meant deeper, which would have been an engineering concern. We were advised by a contractor friend not to go more than six feet without shoring up the hole.

You can see the bog at the top right of the photo with my two (friendly) herons standing guard.

 

[MitchM]

I really like that setup, LisaK.

 

[DrellDrell]

Sure! We have a negative edge pond that flows into a "reverse bog". The pit itself is 6 feet deep (and I think 10x10 if memory serves) and is filled with Aquablox - the purpose is to create space that can hold more water than a pit filled with gravel or rock. The top 12" or so is gravel. The portion that's visible is actually only about 4ft x4ft - the rest is covered with dirt and you would never know that directly beneath you is 1000 gallons of water. This also serves as our skimmer, so larger debris is caught at the top of the gravel as the water flows through. We rake it out or pick it up by hand, depending on what it is. Our submersible pump is in a vault that sits in the pit. So the water flows over the edge of the pond, through the gravel, into the rain exchange where the pump lives and gets pumped back up to the up flow bog where it feeds the main waterfall.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, I probably should have lead with this:

View attachment 81989


This photo is oddly elongated, but you get the idea. You are looking straight at the end of the pond. The gravel you see is the "reverse bog". We grow plants directly in the gravel - those are hostas on the right that were scrawny little pieces leftover from some transplants so I thought "what the heck - I'll try them here". They have grown like crazy. To the left, under the gray pot (behind the blue one) you can just make out the vault lid. So the pit extends that far to the left and then beyond the stone wall on the right almost to the grass you can just barely see. And that's all full of water - most of the time. When we have a dry spell, we sometimes have to add water, but generally the water that we store gets us through without having to add a lot of water. We plumbed our sump pump to empty into the pit as well, so we capture as much rain water as we can. We also installed an overflow pipe that drains to the storm sewer - that's come in handy a few times when we got so much rainwater the rain exchange was full to the top. We regret not making the storage area bigger. But that would have meant deeper, which would have been an engineering concern. We were advised by a contractor friend not to go more than six feet without shoring up the hole.

You can see the bog at the top right of the photo with my two (friendly) herons standing guard.

That's awesome!