Hi Ponders!
Last year, we had to scurry to get a pond in to our new house before winter set in... the fishies needed a home for the winter. It's definitely not the hugest of ponds (a raised bog, flowing into a middle pond which then flows into a preform). Here's how it looked at the end of last year:
All of the rocks were brought over from our previous house (not a small undertaking >.<), and because of time and resources, we had to fake the edges of the bog and middle pond using garden edging staked into the ground and wrapped with liner and Rock on a Roll.
What I have found, after about 6 months with this setup, is I'm constantly battling wicking up over the edge. Through capillary action, water will travel up through the liner creases, over the edging and down into the soil. That's ok, because I knew this was temporary, but now it is time to do the edges fo'realz. I have pulled up all of the edges and plan to remove the garden plastic edging, because IT'S TIME FOR MORE ROCKS!!!!
For context, here's a pic I snapped this morning. You can see all of the liner pulled up and fugly, just waiting to be lined with rocks!
I don't have a ton of room up around the edges, so I'm looking for flatish, relatively narrow stones (probably 6"-10" max). I've seen some pallets of Pennsylvania field stone intended for walls, which I think will work. I'm thinking of doing maybe 2-3 layers of stones around the edge, with the lowest layer perhaps right at, or just below the water line with the liner wrapping around behind it and anchored by another course of stones on top.
I've found that those fieldstone pallets tend to have huge pieces on the bottom, and smaller pieces on top. While I can use a few of the largish ones for steps elsewhere, I'm a little worried I will have to buy more than I need to have enough of the smaller sizes (is it possible to custom order pallets that only have a particular size of rocks?). FYI - Long term, I will also redo the raised edges of the surrounding beds using matching rocks, but that's probably a project for another year as budget is a concern. Next year, the lower preform will be expanded and improved - bigger and deeper - so my rock-buying days are definitely not over.
So, if you have built up the edges of your pond with flatish stone, can I see? What kind of rocks did you use? If you have a similar setup as me, and didn't use flatish stone, i'd love to see that as well. I'm not wed to any particular idea yet, still just gathering information =)
Thank you!!
Michele
Last year, we had to scurry to get a pond in to our new house before winter set in... the fishies needed a home for the winter. It's definitely not the hugest of ponds (a raised bog, flowing into a middle pond which then flows into a preform). Here's how it looked at the end of last year:
All of the rocks were brought over from our previous house (not a small undertaking >.<), and because of time and resources, we had to fake the edges of the bog and middle pond using garden edging staked into the ground and wrapped with liner and Rock on a Roll.
What I have found, after about 6 months with this setup, is I'm constantly battling wicking up over the edge. Through capillary action, water will travel up through the liner creases, over the edging and down into the soil. That's ok, because I knew this was temporary, but now it is time to do the edges fo'realz. I have pulled up all of the edges and plan to remove the garden plastic edging, because IT'S TIME FOR MORE ROCKS!!!!
For context, here's a pic I snapped this morning. You can see all of the liner pulled up and fugly, just waiting to be lined with rocks!
I don't have a ton of room up around the edges, so I'm looking for flatish, relatively narrow stones (probably 6"-10" max). I've seen some pallets of Pennsylvania field stone intended for walls, which I think will work. I'm thinking of doing maybe 2-3 layers of stones around the edge, with the lowest layer perhaps right at, or just below the water line with the liner wrapping around behind it and anchored by another course of stones on top.
I've found that those fieldstone pallets tend to have huge pieces on the bottom, and smaller pieces on top. While I can use a few of the largish ones for steps elsewhere, I'm a little worried I will have to buy more than I need to have enough of the smaller sizes (is it possible to custom order pallets that only have a particular size of rocks?). FYI - Long term, I will also redo the raised edges of the surrounding beds using matching rocks, but that's probably a project for another year as budget is a concern. Next year, the lower preform will be expanded and improved - bigger and deeper - so my rock-buying days are definitely not over.
So, if you have built up the edges of your pond with flatish stone, can I see? What kind of rocks did you use? If you have a similar setup as me, and didn't use flatish stone, i'd love to see that as well. I'm not wed to any particular idea yet, still just gathering information =)
Thank you!!
Michele