What a busy summer. I can’t believe it is over, and we are in the slow decline towards winter. As such, it is a perfect time to catch up on my blog. It has been a little while and I will do my best to catch up.
PREFACE
One project I worked on this summer was a small waterfall water feature in Pocatello, ID. The client had an existing pre-fabricated plastic water fall in the location already, but had grown tired of the manufactured look. They had tried planting flowers, vines, and perennials around the plastic to soften it up, but the plants could only do so much. When I was called in, they hadn’t even tried to fill it again from the winter as they knew they had planned on replacing it. To keep it from being a massive eyesore out their large bay windows in the family room, they placed some potted flowers in the pond portion to tone things down a little. This client loves little garden ornaments, and had several little frog ornaments and a couple larger metal herons.CONSTRUCTION
The construction phase of the project began long before I actually broke ground at the property. In the late part of the spring, we were able to take the kids to Disneyland. We had a great time. We figured it would cost us quite a bit less to drive and stay in Las Vegas the first night, and drive the rest of the way the next day. With my in-laws going with us, it saved the cost of seven airline tickets and the cost of the rental car once arriving in Los Angeles. Shortly after passing Jackpot, Nevada, heading south on highway 93 from Twin Falls, I noticed some really nice looking boulders on the side of the highway.
After returning from Disneyland, I called the Nevada Bureau of Land Management. I found it wasn’t very expensive at all to get a quarrying permit for collecting landscape boulders. I had another project that needed some boulders, so I made the hour trip down to check things out and collect a few. The rocks were even more spectacular than I had hoped. They were dark red shale, and they were just covered in several different species of lichen, from bright fluorescent green to a dark black. We found a place off of the main highway where we could drive right up to some decomposing cliffs and collect all the specimens we wanted. The hard part was only taking what we needed, and not overloading my truck. 
Because of the nature of shale, most of the pieces were quite flat – almost like a flagstone. In fact, I may consider these rocks for my next flagstone patio project. They would be gorgeous. I did manage to overload my truck a little and couldn’t drive over 50 miles per hour without the threat of swaying off of the road. Another trip down, this time with the family, would enable me to collect enough rocks for both projects.
I started actual construction on the water feature by clearing out all the existing materials that would be inside the new pond area. This included the flower pots, plastic water feature, concrete blocks, quartzite flagstone, and gravel. With this removed, I could see a little more of what I was dealing with. The area was quite difficult to work with as it was quite narrow with only about ten feet between the house and an arbor, but about twenty-five feet across the width of the family room. It also had very little vertical drop, but sometimes you make do with what you have. 
I started excavating and dug out the overall shape I wanted the pond to be. The brand of equipment I was using was Aquascapes, and I was using a skimmer box and one bio-falls. I created the layers and the area for the falls. Because the area was so wide, I decided to make two spill areas. This was a little tricky as I only had one bio-falls. After digging out the pond and building up the falls area, I started dry-setting the rocks. Before I could start with the underlayment and the liner, I had to get all the underground plumbing installed. This includes the skimmer, bio-falls, pipe from the pump to the falls, shut-off valves, and overflow. 
I plumbed it so the owner had the option of running either falls separately, both simultaneously, or shut both off completely. With the plumbing completed, I pulled out the dry-set stones and started with the underlayment. The underlayment is almost like a heavy cotton fabric that protects the pond liner from any sharp rocks that might work their way up underneath the pond. After the underlayment came the pond liner. This is a thick piece of rubber that is difficult to move around. When I had gotten the liner as flat on the contours as I could, I started placing the rocks. 
This is like building one puzzle from 20 different boxes. Some pieces went together like they were made that way and others I had to persuade them to fit together. While placing the stones, I used a black expanding foam behind and around the rocks to seal any cracks or crevices to increase the amount of water moving over the surface of the rocks, as opposed to going behind them. I sealed up the bio-falls and skimmer and capped them off. I installed the gravel in the bottom of the pond and was ready to test it out. I filled it with water, turned on the pump, opened the valves, and watched it flow. 
With a few tweaks with more foam and rocks, I decided that the water feature was finished. I cleaned up the area and raked out the surrounding soil. CONCLUSION AND BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS
Overall this was a good project. It took me about a week, working by myself in tight quarters. The client is super excited about the waterfall and loved sitting outside, reading a book, on cool evenings through the summer.
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BEFORE |
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