[SOUND]
[MUSIC]
So we're ready for excavation.
But before we get started I wanna cover a couple of things.
In this video we're gonna talk about benches for
aquatic plants, we're gonna cover some fish tunnels, but
my personal pet peeve is I, I don't like seeing a pond that's really out of balance.
Looks real heavy on one side, looks like water wants to spill out the other,
and I'm gonna show you how to avoid that, that common made mistake.
I'm gonna take a simple straight edge and a four foot level,
you don't need any, any fancy equipment, and we're gonna set it down in this area, and
we're gonna determine how th, how the lay of the land is.
And I'll show you how, with this side is low, so
we're gonna take dirt from this side as we're digging,
we're gonna back fill this section and we're gonna create an equal balance, and
that way we can have water brimming at the edge of all the coping stones.
It's a really beautiful look.
It's one of my personal favorites.
Let's get started.
So I had this shelf just laying around the yard, it's a simple straight edge,
I found it on the property.
I have a four foot level, and as you can see, if I start to lift this and
get level, on that side of the pond.
I'm a good three inches out of whack.
So if I just dug all this dirt out, and threw it out behind the waterfall
when I was completed, I would be out of balance like this.
So when we start digging, I'm gonna take this soil, I'm gonna back fill this area,
and I can come back to the straight edge throughout the dig, to see and
make sure we're in balance.
And I'm also gonna show you how to, to check your accurate depth.
Because when we're done, I'll be able to take this straight edge come from side to side,
and I can get an accurate reading on how deep the pond's gonna be.
So we're ready to start digging.
I know you guys wanna dig, just be patient with me,
I wanna talk cover a couple more things.
Let's talk soil conditions.
I know we have soil conditions all across the nation.
In Florida, sandy conditions, probably never gonna use a jackhammer.
New Mexico, always using a jackhammer.
Southern California, my team uses a jackhammer probably on 80% of the projects.
This is the jackhammer we're using today.
I didn't get a chance to moisten this soil before we started and
that's something I would advise you to do, in advance.
If you're gonna know you're gonna start digging that weekend,
water that area down really well so the soil's loosened up for you when you begin.
The first thing I wanna cover, and then we'll start digging, is this first level,
we're gonna dig down about ten to 12 inches.
A lot of people make the mistake and they just start digging deep right away, and then
they, they, they kind of ruin the bench area where you might put your character stones.
So the first thing we're gonna do, we're gonna dig this down, ten to 12 inches all
the way across, and we're gonna double check our levels so we're not out of balance.
And then we'll spray paint the next bench.
I'm ready to start digging. Let's do this.
[NOISE]
Got a tamper?
[NOISE] As we're excavating, well,
you can see we're throwing a lot
of the dirt behind this waterfall so
we're building up a mound or
a berm, and we're going to have
our waterfall coming out of this area.
Be sure you take the time to compact this area really thoroughly.
It's a simple tool.
This is a ten by ten tamper.
They have an eight by eight that we use as well.
I'm gonna use it to compact this soil as we're building up behind the waterfall.
It's really important so
that you don't have
any settling [NOISE].
Okay, so we have the first bench all sculpted out.
I have my straightedge back in the pond.
We're nice and level.
Right about eight inches deep.
And this is the bench where we're gonna be setting all of our character stones.
So I'm gonna spray paint the next level down so we can start digging.
We're gonna go the next level about 12 inches deep.
This is where people get impatient, take your time with the excavation,
don't get impatient, a lot of people get tired and they just wanna call it, quits.
If your not perfectly level your gonna regret it later.
Okay, we're gonna spray paint the next shelf.