Well-conceived and well-executed finishing touches are essential to a successful water garden project. There are several ways to add just the right finishing touch to your garden pond, including edging with various materials, adding structures or creating accents.
A natural wood bench or deck provides a restful site to relax while contemplating the water and makes a practical finishing touch. Here, a heron sculpture also adds to the appeal of the setting.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Plants can also make nice finishing touches. Here, a planting site within the margin of the water feature allows for a thriving fern to grow among the waterfalls.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
If you want your finishing touch to really give your garden pond that final look you’re going for, whatever you add needs to be consistent with the style you’ve chosen for your water garden. Look back to your original design or idea file and remember the purpose of your garden. For a formal design, bricks, geometric stones, tile and square-finished deck platforms make attractive edgings for a pool or watercourse. Modern sculpture also may help complete the look, depending on your garden’s scale and design.
For more natural ponds and streams, finishing touches should look more rugged and random, as if placed there by natural forces. For example, boulders set into the banks of a stream or pond or doubling as stepping-stones to cross the feature will look more natural than would square, concrete pavers; a pebble beach or sloping sand-and-turf approach to the water’s edge also serves to imitate nature. A rough-sawn deck or handmade bridge can look at home, too – especially if it’s consistent in style and materials to nearby structures, like your home, a gazebo, shed or barn.
The most prominent finishing touch for a water feature is edging material. The type you choose must be installed correctly so as to assure safety, while enhancing the entire water garden. Edgings for formal projects often demand precision and symmetry in design and construction – even a slight variation in a brick or manufactured stone edge’s level, spacing or dimensioning becomes noticeable. Although a flaw or two might pass inspection when edging a natural-style water feature with coping stones, it’s still important that the shape and placement of your materials achieve their desired effect and stay firmly in place.
While your edging materials primarily serve aesthetic functions, they also help in concealing the edges of a liner, hiding a pump cable, camouflaging light fixtures, keeping surrounding soil and water from entering the feature and protecting the liner from UV-rich sunlight damage. Edging materials also serve a valuable safety function: clearly marking the edge and perhaps even barring access to hazardous areas of a water feature. (This is an especially important consideration for those with children, pets or young visitors!)
Coping stones are a common edging seen around pools and also are appropriate for traditional garden ponds and streams. (“Coping” refers to any material atop a vertical structure, such as the walls of a water feature.) Set the stones flat or slope them slightly away from the water. They should overhang the water’s edge to help conceal the liner and provide both shade and protection for fish and amphibians. The following pictures and their captions show the steps to installing coping stones along your water feature’s edge.
Installing Coping Stones
Installing Coping Stones - Step 1
Trial-set stones atop the liner, resting them on an excavated shelf 1-2 inches above the future water level. Use a carpenter’s level – coping stones should slope a quarter to half a bubble away from the pond to prevent surface water from flowing into your water feature when it rains.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Installing Coping Stones - Step 2
Working in small sections, remove each stone, create a bed of mortar, moisten the stone, then loosely seat it into the wet mortar.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Installing Coping Stones - Step 3
Position the stones to overhang the edge 2-3 inches, with their bases set at least 3 inches above the future surface level of the water, allowing the liner to hold water without leaking. Check the level of the stones along the perimeter and their slope away from the pool. Tap them firmly into place in the mortar using a rubber mallet.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Installing Coping Stones - Step 4
Fit stones around skimmer boxes, filters and other fixtures. Check that utility covers will fit over the stones prior to mortaring them in place, and avoid mortaring over pipes, fittings and electrical connections that may require future maintenance.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Installing Coping Stones - Step 5
Use a damp sponge and water to remove any mortar spills, and remove any excess mortar inside the pond. Allow the mortar to cure for 48-72 hours before filling the pond with water.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Installing Coping Stones - Step 6
Fill the pond or stream, then use a pump to extract water contaminated with mortar. Repeat the process until the water is clear of mortar.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
