Part 8 Pond Construction – Adding Pond Rocks and Constructing Waterfall

In Part 7 Pond Construction – Adding Pond Plants I talked about getting some pond plants in early so they can start growing. In this post I’m going to talk about adding rocks to the pond. The rocks will be added to the edging and inside the pond on the shelves. The rocks are used to hide the liner and provide a stable structure to the edge of the pond.

Materials Needed

  • Garden Dump Cart
  • Dolly
  • Shovel
  • Pickaxe
  • Liner Scraps
  • Utility Knife

I needed all kinds of rocks and usually that would mean going out and finding some. If you are lucky to live in an area with lots of rocks you should easily be able to do this. You may already have some rocks you uncovered while digging out the pond. Here in Tallahassee, FL there are very very few rocks. There are a couple of quarries not too far away but those rocks are mostly limestone. While some limestone would work, I mostly wanted rocks that were of granite type or similar. This meant I needed to go buy some rocks. A quick trip to the nearest nursery made me realize this was going to be expensive. The nurseries near me wanted 60 cents a pound or more for their rocks. This was not going to work. I found a lot of rocks on craigslist for $200 and picked them up. This were about 2 pickup trucks full and a great start. I purchased them during the pond build and placed them on pallets until I was ready for them.
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That load of rocks was great but I needed more. I especially wanted some bigger and flatter ones for the pond edges. I wanted the pond to be easily approachable and a large flat rock is perfect. I took a trip to a landscape supply store about an hour away and found rocks for 1/3 the price of the local nursery. I took my iPhone and took many pictures of ones I thought I wanted. Then I came home and made a list using the pictures. One of the ones I really liked they called stepstone.
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On another day I rented a trailer and had my father-in-law help me get the rock. Here was my list for this trip:

  • 3 pieces of stepstone around 24″-36″ x 24″ x 36″ x 6-12″ – around $0.22 a lb
  • 16 pieces of larger sized flagstone – around $0.22 a lb
  • 16 pieces of smaller sized flagstone –  around$0.22 a lb
  • 8 pieces of larger sized boulders around 18″ wide –  around $0.22 a lb
  • 5 bags of Egg Rock – $3.25 a bag
  • 1/2 scoop of Appalachian River Skippers – $30

I really liked the river skippers. I eventually went back and got another 1/2 of scoop and I still want more. They work great on the shelves.
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Now that I bought all the rocks it was time to install them. First using select rocks I built the waterfall. I found 2 really nice rocks for the water to flow over and into the pond. I then used about 2-3 cans of waterfall foam all around and under them. P1130257

Then I took all the medium rocks I got on craigslist and put them all around the pond. This was only temporary but it helped me get an idea. I also got a fake rock cover for the skimmer at the Landscape supply store and it worked perfectly and I permanently installed the rocks in the section around it.
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Now was a good time to put in the larger rocks. I pulled out the extra liner that I rolled up along the pond edge and actually dug down underneath along the side of the pond so that I could have the large rock look like it was partially in the water of the pond. So for each of the large rocks I had to do quite a bit of work. I took my time and did one or two on a given day. I had the help of my wife and a dolly to move the rocks around. At one point I dropped the biggest one on my toe and caused blood to get trapped under the nail. Don’t worry it healed perfectly but it was almost a year later. Some of the really heavy rocks I added a piece of scrap liner underneath them just for added protection. This also helped me slide the rock around into place.

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Next Post: Part 9 Pond Construction – Building the Pond Bridge

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