A Better Waterfall

Since last year the waterfall has been unfinished. The top of the waterfall is in place, but the only thing between that and the streambed 3 feet below has been a bit of rubber liner. Here is how it looked the day we restarted the waterfall in May:


My intent has always been to take care of this "someday", and in fact my focus the last couple weeks has been planning out the location of the footpaths, track, and rest of the garden. However, the water feature has been losing a lot of water due to evaporation. I checked that it wasn't due to leaks, at least leaks in the pond area itself, by stopping the waterfall for a couple hours and verifying that the water level remained constant. I also adjusted the lining around the water fall to shift the flow, and found that doing so could reduce the splashing and thus the rate of evaporation. But the rate of evaporation was still worrisome enough that something had to be done.

I figured, correctly as it turned out, that the problem was the 3 foot drop caused the water to splash several feet away after it hit the rocks, and that the solution was to find a way to reduce the distance the water fell before hitting the rocks, thus reducing the velocity when the water hit the rocks.

After some experimenting around and buying of various materials, I decided the solution was to replace the rubber liner with a larger one, as shown here:


Once in place, this allowed me to assemble a pile of rocks in a somewhat likely shape to make the new waterfall. Here it is in action:


Visually, it is better but not complete. I will be adding pea gravel around the area and a few smaller rocks, strategically placed, to hide as much of the black liner as possible. I'll also be dressing up the sides of the stream/waterfall so the transition looks more natural. However, even now it is an improvement over the simple rubber liner.

The other advantage we found is that the sound is quieter and, to us, better. The water still babbles and gurgles, but it seems smoother and more soothing now. I'll know tomorrow morning whether this has solved the evaporation problem without introducing new leaks, but early results look good.

Tomorrow is Father's Day and my goal is to have as much of the subroadbed for the main oval sited and pre-dug as I can.