Pond masonry work

[miamicuse]

I am pretty good with masonry, specifically concrete, plaster, stucco, but my experience is with walls and slabs, straight lines and sharp angles. If you ask me to make a rock out of concrete, I'll be in trouble.

Many years ago in 1992, someone made this pond out of concrete and stucco, not just the pond, as the boulders extended beyond the edge of the pond.

Now I would like to make some changes, I want to build up some areas, and I have tried it myself but what I did I can tell it doesn't look the same it shows as patches. I know it's the color and the texture but I just can't match what's there. Yes I know it will blend in once I have plants and fish, the moss will grow and all kinds of plants will soften things like it once was before I did the clean out.

So my question is, are there skilled professionals who make rocks and boulders to match what I have? Where do I find them? I can find masons but they do the same thing I do which is either horizontal or vertical.

 

[GBBUDD]

first of all your thinking and your right that you finishing trowels and your mind set is not the same as doing a rock and your right unless you want to do like a blue stone or marble that has been cut . Creating the look of a natural rock is not that hard but it is more art than skill. it takes skill to make a smooth even scratch coat . that's where your lucky with rocks there's no need to more UNEVEN THE BETTER. go to you tube and do a search for creating faux rocks

As far as color goes you will never get there i can see moss growing on the rocks and i can assure you that brown is year of deteriorating plant matter and dirt you can see what was below the water line has far less coloring and actually looks close to just concrete the builder may not have been as good at coloring the rocks as they were in making them look real .

You can help that SPEED UP that process though, I have many times after a fresh pour on say a concrete walk that is next to old concrete taken dirt and ground it in and then swept it off or even lightly pressure washed it

Your tools in this should be more your hands and say very hd course paving brush or masons brush very thick very heavy.
I'll let you tube take over from here but i would start really looking at your rocks as to what makes them look real the splatter of a texture the cracks that were made .

Even iF there is and area THAT YOU DON'T NED TO DO ELSE WHERE I WOULD THINK ABOUT APPLYING YOUR COLOR AND style to a second or third spot along the pond so as it ages it will blend right in FEW stones are exactly the same color by making more your style the more natural it will look

 

[miamicuse]

I have already watched many online videos of making rocks from concrete, and some of them I do like their results, I did pick up some tips and tricks like using some soil to smear it into the finish surfaces, or wait till the product sets a bit then use a garden hose to create some random weathering effects etc...

For the build up and shaping I have no issues. I can use broken old bricks that I have thousands of to create a rough shape, set with rapid set mortar, then put a hardware cloth over them to form a more gentle shape, then probably use Type S stucco/mortar as a base layer on the hardware cloth. It is at this point no matter what I do I can't get the texture and color that "looks right", and probably this is impossible as you said the original had 30 years of weathering that can't really be replicated.

I started to look at rock texturing mats. Wow those are expensive!

I tried using hand and fingers to make indentations. I even used natural rocks and pressed them into the stucco repeatedly to create some natural looking impressions. Tried a bunch of ways.