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Today, we're gonna focus on edge treatment,
it's one of my favorite parts of pond construction.
What exactly does edge treatment mean?
Well, it's means basically hiding this liner that's up and sticking out of the pond.
But more importantly, it's about taking the waterscape and the coping stone, and
blending it into the landscape, so there's a seamless seamless entry from water to land.
Now, there's a lot of different styles from basic to advanced techniques.
And we're gonna walk you step by step through several different processes, so
you can choose what best fits your style and your landscape.
We're gonna take this two foot section, and I'm gonna show you two or
three different styles of edge treatment, that we can apply around the entire feature.
Now, let's start with this, I got my skimmer right here.
Now I know water level's two inches below my skimmer, and
this rock is set a little bit above this.
So what I wanna do is, I wanna come through here,
and flip this liner back like so and bring in soil.
[SOUND] Just below this area like so.
[SOUND] Can I have a tamper please someone?
Okay.
[SOUND] A little bit more.
[SOUND] So
now I know this is a couple inches above water level.
At least an inch and a half above water level compared to the,
to the two inches below water level I have the, the top of the skimmer set at.
Okay, now if I have this liner set up like this,
I know it's above water level.
Let's go with step one,
something real simple,
I've got this piece of slate right here.
There's an easy way to get started.
You can put slate around the side of the pond so you can walk up to the next,
take some gravel, hide the edges of the liner.
[SOUND] Work that in like this.
[SOUND] Now that's a simple technique and
we can keep, keep continuing on.
I have some different grades of gravel, to create interest and texture.
[SOUND] And,
and using the different texture of gravel gives it a little bit of randomness.
Now this piece of slate gives it a little bit of formal touch because, you know,
you got this edge and if you did it all the way around the pond it would feel formal.
You can work in a little bit of smaller gravel like this.
[SOUND] Different
textures of gravel, and that looks nice.
Now, that's one approach, the cool thing about this approach is that it's kind of like
a weed abatement program because your liner comes to here.
So it's not likely that you're gonna get weeds popping up next to the pond.
So that's approach one, I'm gonna take this apart, and we'll go to approach two.
Another approach to doing edge treatment.
We, if you want to keep this liner long like this and do somewhat of a weed abatement, so
weeds don't grow up next to the pond,
you're gonna need to maybe contend with some wrinkles like this.
So let's say I have a wrinkle like this, I can come in with a flat stone,
just a random stone that you get out of your rock pile when you build a pond.
You might need to just address a wrinkle like that.
The big heavy wrinkles were done like that.
You can come in with some bark next to the pond like this.
[SOUND] And
you can work your way all the way around the pond.
If you want, maybe mix in a couple of random stones, like this, in these areas.
[SOUND] This is a style that's used quite a bit.
Now, if the, if the bark, if you're in a really windy environment, and
the bark should blow into the pond, sometimes it will turn the color of your pond
a little bit different color, you'll get a little brown tint to it.
So there are some drawbacks to this.
If you have, say, dogs, or heavy traffic area, a lot of movement around the pond,
this could prove to be an issue because a lot of times it'll be kicked into the pond.
It's a really pretty look, it looks nice.
You don't necessarily wanna run a line of bark all the way around the pond cuz
it might look contrived, it might look like some manmade kinda like a little line of,
of bark around the pond.
But it is a nice look, it's an easy way to hide the liner, but you wanna move in
a little bit of rockwork like this and a little bit of cobble here and there to
kinda break up the edges between the coping stone, and it makes it look nice as well.
But that's a real easy way to hide that liner.
The real key was, you saw how I smoothed out the, the sand and
the dirt below this and compacted it and had a nice level area to work with.
And that's a real key factor to making this blend seamlessly so there's your second
approach, and this can be mimicked all the way around all the sides of the pond.
Another way to treat his edge would be to
run different styles of gravel around the edge of this.
If you're gonna do the gravel approach, I highly recommend using different grades,
say a three inch minus, a three quarter, an inch and a half.
And then you put the gravel around the side of the pond and
then you can hide the liner and still have the weed abatement program,
I'll show you how we would do that right now, if you chose that approach.
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Now mixing in these different grades of,
of gravel makes a, goes a long way when you're trying to naturalize it.
[SOUND] You might see this
in more of a desert environment where they're using a lot of gravel in the landscape.
[SOUND] And
you can follow this approach all the way around the pond to hide the liner.
[SOUND] And then when you come in and
install your plants here, it will help soften the edges quite a bit.
But it's really important, I have three quarter, one inch,
and three inch minus kind of mixed in here, it's not all the same grade.
So if you're gonna do the gravel approach, I highly recommend using the different grades.
And then you can take this approach all the way around the pond as well.
Sometimes we're gonna wanna cut this liner close.
You might wanna put a plant right next to the pond, let's say.
And instead of cutting a hole through this liner, sometimes, that can be a pain.
So I'll show you a technique that we do for cutting it close.
Now the pond is to the, to the maximum level.
So what I can do is, I can take a sharp razor blade and
I can cut this liner hm, approximately four inches outside the pond.
And you can follow that all the way around the pond, but for this exercise,
I will just stop it right here.
Okay.
So let me grab a shovel.
And I'll show you what I'll do is,
I'll dig down next to the pond, behind the coping stone.
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Okay, you see I'm running into the underlayment a little bit there.
[SOUND] So
this is a pretty clean approach I'll show you here.
So what I'm doing, I was digging out this excex,
excess soil, and I'll tuck down the underlayment,
now what I'll do is I'll tuck this liner, like so.
And as long as I just come a little bit below this rock, you see that?
And my water's, my level on the pond is full, so if I had a fold in the liner,
which would allow water to come out, water would be spilling out, but
it's not, so what I can do is come in here.
Push down the dirt.
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So, I folded that liner.
Now, this is what's interesting.
If I drop the dirt through here, all the way through the pond,
all around the edge like this, that dirt can come down and touch the, the water,
and you'll get a capillary action where the water actually sucks up through the,
the, the dirt, and you can start yourself a leak.
So, what I'll do is, what I like to do,
I'll keep it exposed like so,
I'll grab my foam gun and I'll come through and
do a little foam treatment like this.
That way if I wanna bring dirt all the way up to the edge of the rock,
I won't experience that capillary action.
Okay, so you see that?
Now what I'll do is, bring in my soil all the way up to the edge.
And now you can literally have soil right up to the edge of your pond.
So it looks like this rock blends right into the landscape.
Now here's where I will show you another trick,
so you can make this more natural looking.
We have this big rock, big rock, dirt.
So what I like to do is, kinda do a little mix
between everything that I've shown you so far.
We'll mix in a little bit of rock.
I'll take an interesting stone, like this,
decide the way I want it, I think I'm gonna go like that.
I got this cool hand pick, it's a great tool for doing edge treatment.
What I'll do is.
[SOUND]
I'll take and embed one of these rocks, and
this is a cool rock because it's very,
it looks bigger than it really is because it's so skinny.
But I'll kind of embed that next to the pond like this, so we have a blend of rock.
A little bit of cobble, the differences of gravel.
And then what I can do.
[SOUND] I'll take my hand pick, come through here.
[SOUND] Install some moss, like this.
Now we're really starting to break the edges up a little bit.
[SOUND] Like that.
If you want to you can mix in a little bit of bark.
So we're blending all those styles,
and then to kinda finale it.
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We'll come through here and
plant the terrestrial plant right next to the edge.
And now we're really in business because it's becoming very naturalized.
So we got a combination of everything.
The terrestrial plants, a little bit of cobble,
some dirt, moss, even a little bit of bark around the edge.
So we kinda mixed some things up here.
Now what I showed you today is just a couple different styles of edge treatment.
You can do a wood deck that comes right up next to the pond,
even hanging over into the pond a little bit.
You can do decomposed granite pathways, lot of different styles.
But what I showed you today, I think, will get you a big movement forward in being able
to hide your edge treatment making it look real natural.
I'm Eric Triplett, The Pond Digger, thanks for watching.
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