Landscaping Around the Waterfall

I had two areas that I was unsure of how I wanted to finish. One was the dirt hill around the waterfall. The second was how to hide the liner underneath the waterfall (See the second photo). My first plan was to plant grass on the dirt around the waterfall so I could just mow it. I am not at all inclined to having a greenthumb. Perhaps a lack of knowledge on the subject would be more accurate. I thought grass would be easiest if not the most boring. Well it sat like the first photograph until this spring. I tried some textured cinder blocks. You can see them on either side of the waterfall. This just didn't do it for me.

One thing I never really liked was how the waterfall kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. Mostly because of a plain dirt hill framing it. I toyed with the idea of just piling a ton of rocks around it to try and give it a more natural look. But I felt that the waterfall isn't necessarily that natural looking in the first place. I just needed something to tie it in. I had some flat rocks left over from the edging so I decided to try making some terraces with rock walls. I put them at each drop on the waterfall . I only had enough rock for a couple of feet on each level, but I could tell right away that I liked it. So two more pickup loads of rock and a little elbow grease and it really started to look good.

Now for the second problem. On one of the pickup loads of rocks, we found a great big rock about 5 feet long by 1 - 2 feet wide and about 5 or 6 inches thick. I don't know how heavy, but very heavy. My original plan was to use it as a bridge over the narrow part of the "stream" coming from the waterfall. One day my father-in-law helped me move it over and drop it down as part of the waterfall. It was exactly what I needed. It took away about a 2 1/2 foot drop from the last level of the waterfall and evened it out (I was getting way to much splash). Plus it allowed me to stack other rocks up to disquise the liner. I cemented rocks on top of it to keep the water coming out the front of the rock into the pond. It also made a nice "echo chamber" for the waterfall sound. You can see both solutions in the last picture. My wife really liked the looks of the terraced flower beds. After I had this done she told me that this was the first time she really liked the looks of the pond. I put her in charge of planting flowers in the beds. I think it will look really good in a couple of years when the beds mature.

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