Everything you see in this photo is man made. All these rocks were blocked out of foam, then sculpted out of concrete and painted. Soon it will have water flowing down it for a 4000 gallon pond we created.
Our first step was to dig the pond to size, in this case that meant 5 feet deep and approximately 25 feet in diameter with a 2 foot ledge almost all the way around.
We also did not want any kind of artificial/mechanical filtration system so we added a bog that was 12 inches deep and approximately 10 foot by 8 foot wide. In this photo you can see our bottom drain which will pull water from the bottom of the pond up into the bottom of the gravel bog system which is in the back behind and above the pond
We then went to our local carpet supplier in town and they gave us all the used carpet we needed so we could use it as an underlayment for the pond liner. This helps protect the liner from being punctured with rocks or other unknown little sharp things
Ok, so I know what your thinking… that looks like S…. , er “Crappy”. Here we are starting to lay out the basic size and shape of our bog rocks. this wall of soon to be rocks are what our bog water is going to flow over and then back into our pond. This portion of the forming of the rocks always looks like hell. But as you can see below it comes out pretty good when done.
After the foam is roughed out to the desired shape they receive a scratch coat made from a special cement coating that not only bonds to the EPS foam but also has fibers in it so the next finish coat bonds to it extremely well. We then add a waterproofing cement over top of the scratch coat for all areas that are going to be underwater or directly in contact with the water, like the waterfall.
Here we are just starting out with the finish coat and creating rock details
This is a shot of Terry adding detail and texture to the rocks after the cement finish coat is applied.
Adding a little fun to the project with this excaliber sword to a main rock
The waterfall was built up with foam and here the scratch coat is being applied. Once again at this stage its hard to imagine this ever looking good, but the photo below shows you the results
A wide angle shot of the entire pond as the rocks are being painted
Bog rockwork completed
