Waterfall Gardens

Waterfalls dramatically change your landscape with a beautiful look and great sounds. Garden waterfalls create background sounds that block out unwanted noise beyond your yard. It creates a sense of privacy and allows you to carry on conversations in private.

Special Note: Mosquitoes breed in stagnant pools of water. A garden waterfall keeps the water flowing and subsequently discourages these pest.

Waterfall Design:

Think about the overall look you want to achieve with your waterfall. Of course it may also serve the function of filtering your pond, but you’ll want it to look nice as well.

Consider the overall scale of your landscape as well as your garden pond as you design your garden waterfall. If it’s too small you’ll regret it, and if it’s too large the sound of it flowing my be too distracting. An example benchmark would be this:

* 10 ft. x 12 ft. pond would look good with a 2 ft. waterfall. You could go lower or higher depending on your own personal feel.

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3- The distance the water is falling

Note: Look at another waterfall garden to observe how it flows and get design ideas.

Safety Tip: Remember that rocks in your waterfall garden become extremely slippery. If you are walking onto one of them exercise caution.

Supplies Needed:

• Shovel
• Garden hose
• Carpenter’s level
• Rigid pond liner
• Sand
• Tubing for pump to top of waterfall
• Submersible pump
• Rocks
• Possible Alternative – Synthetic Rock Waterfall Liner

Waterfall Pumps:

Remember when choosing your waterfall pump that it must work hard to push water up the slope. Go as high on the GPH levels as possible because gravity increases (or the force to push water uphill) as the water amount and height increases. Helpful tips:

Choosing the Pump:

* Make sure the pump you choose has recirculation of 50% to 100% of the volume of water in your pond.

* For every inch of waterfall lip, allow for 50 gallons per hour of pond water flow.

* You’ll want your pump to run 24/7 to keep your filter system working properly.

* Measure the GPH (Gallons Per Hour): Do this by… 1- Measuring the spillway width. 2- Calculate 150 GPH per inch at the waterfall’s discharge height.

Installing the Pump: * Observe different ways to view the pump from your waterfall.

* You’ll need to level the area where the pump will be stationed.

* Locate the pump at the bottom of your garden pond.

Filter for Waterfall Garden – You’ll want a filter to go along with your pump to help keep the overall pond clean & clear. The filter would be placed at the top of the waterfall so it can clean the water before it comes back into the garden pond.

The Slope of the Waterfall:

Your existing landscape may have enough elevation needed to get a downward flow of water naturally. If your land is flat, it’s easy to create this effect artificially with stones or by using synthetic rock waterfalls. One side note… look at another waterfall garden to observe how it flows and get design ideas.

Note before you start: If you are still at the stage of where you will be digging your pond simultaneously with making your waterfall, you can use the leftover dirt from the pond hole to make your waterfall slope.

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* Put in a large mound of dirt.

* Craft stair steps form your pond to the top of your mound. Using sand on each step is a good idea because it allows you to shape the contours of each stair to form pockets and dips if desired.

* Cover the steps with flexible pond liner. Note: This liner helps to prevent water loss as it cascades down the stair step slope.

* The sides of the waterfall should be high enough to prevent water from running off and out of the sides.

* Run tubing that goes to from the pond to the pump up under the liner.

* Test – Make sure you test the flow of the water before going any further. Turn your pump & filter on just to verify it works the way you want it to. Note: It is easier to make a change now than after you fill everything in.

* Put your decorative stones and boulders around you waterfall and on the stair steps.

* Stand back and enjoy your running waterfall garden.

If you are not up for all the extra digging, or messing with pond liners, stones or concrete, go for the synthetic rock waterfall. Versions of this can be installed in 30 minutes versus all day the other way. It all depends on you because using real stones can be rewarding if you’re up to it.

Tips:

* When crafting the steps to your waterfall create pockets in the stairs. This allows the water to cascade from one rock & step to the next with great splashing sounds.

* If you use a lightweight rock like feather rock a dip or pocket can be easily chiseled into that stone.

* You’ll lose some water to evaporation and spillage so top-off your pond weekly to keep it up to a good level.