A picture is worth a thousand words
This is an early stage of a small homeowner-built pond. After digging it out, John and Cordelia (the homeowners) lined it with 45 mil EPDM rubber.
Hiding liner is a big challenge in any pond. Rather than using boulders, which are heavy, unstable and take up pond space, John and Cordelia used Rock-on-a-Roll, which conformed nicely to the shape of the pond.
After adding a few plants, and of course water, they had created a simple but very charming small water feature.
This is a much larger project built by us, Aquatica Water Gardens. Here you see seven rolls of Rock-on-a-Roll that have been laid along the pond edges, covering the rubber. Each roll is 34 inches wide by 8 feet long, and weighs about 6 pounds.
This is the lower part of a stream that flows into the pond. Thin stones are used to create a water cascade, and Rock-on-a-Roll is used along the edges.
This is the completed project. Because there is no thick ring of boulders, plants will easily be able to grow over the edge, creating a soft and natural look. You can find step-by-step details of this construction project in the raised-edge method section of this website.
The edges of preformed ponds are just as unattractive and hard to hide as those of rubber lined ponds. They are also usually very small, so you don't want to waste valuable pond space with boulders.
Rock-on-a-Roll takes up very little space, and makes hiding the edge simple.
This next set of pictures comes from Bob H. with the Green Garden Group in Burlington, NC.
You can see the beginning stage of a stream that will flow into a lower pond.
The Rock-on-a-Roll is held in place by a few stones along the bottom and soil along the top edge.
Because the full width of Rock-on-a-Roll was not needed for the sides, the group cut the rolls in half lengthwise and were able to get twice as much length.
Here is the newly finished stream running into the lower pond.
This is the same project looking upstream from the bottom pond.
This is a stream build by Bob, a teacher in the winter and do-it-himself pond builder in the summer. Bob loves natural stone, and he wanted to use a lot in his project. However, using Rock-on-a-Roll gave him the freedom to leaves large gaps where plants could grow over the edges, thus avoiding an overly rocky appearance.
This is the same stream after the plants have grown in for a season.
The stream from above.
Bob put in a small stone bridge just above where the stream enters the lower pond.
These pictures, generously sent in by another homeowner, show him installing Rock-on-a-Roll in an existing pond.
As you can see, it lays out easily and can be cut and molded to any shape.
Rock-on-a-Roll is easy to hold in place. Here it is held on the bottom with stones, and on the top with garden soil.
This is the "before" picture for another homeowner built pond (John and Cordelia - yep, same John and Cordelia - they've built three water features on their Minneapolis city lot.)
Five rolls of Rock-on-a-Roll are laid out along the edge of the pond.
The finished pond and waterfalls. Detailed pictures of this project can be seen in the raised-edge method section of this website.
This is a detail of the of the edge of the pond.
Under moist, shady conditions moss can grow on Rock-on-a-Roll. After a few years, this pond's edge was completely covered with moss.
