Once the liner was in place, we began the long job of filling it with water. Because the liner was heavy we had to make sure the liner filled evenly and did not stretch from the weight of the water.

We also folded the liner where necessary to go around the curves and corners.
Many older styles of pond construction called for simply filling the pond, folding the liner over the edge and placing large rocks on top. The problem with this method is that the liner is not very secure, and when the water evaporates it becomes visible and is exposed to the harmful rays from the sun.

We used a method of construction that hides the liner under a layer of rocks and eliminates this problem. Here you can see a special fabric we used to protect the liner before we built a wall of rocks around the shelf we told you about earlier.
After the rocks were in place we folded the liner over the top and back towards the pond. We then placed large stepping stones on top to cover the liner and form a bridge between the rock wall holding the liner and the surrounding yard.

It took some time to find the best stone for each location to be sure each one was fully secure and would not shift when stepped upon. We also used some large, round rocks with flat bottoms to add height at different areas of the pond edge and create a more natural look.
Here you can see what the rocks looked like before we finished filling the pond. When the pond is full, we have a small wall of rocks just below the surface. As the water evaporates, the rocks are exposed instead of the ugly liner. This helps protect the liner from the sun and even gives us more time before we need to top off the pond again. An added benefit has been watching the pond visitors pick out their favorite cranny to hide in.

We also designed our pond to have one location where the water will drain when it becomes full, making sure that the water level would not rise above the stepping stones at the very top.

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