One trick I've heard about is to bury something underneath the edge of the liner to give it support - say some bricks or small concrete slabs. What this does is gives the liner edge some support, and it also allows you to place the extra liner behind these supports and under the soil (creating a rubber-lined "lip" that is above the water line). This will allow you to have excess liner available, and will also allow you to plant terrestrial plants extremely close to the water's edge. Don't forget to wrap the underlayment over these supports as well. One thing I plan on doing for my upper pond (that I will be adding when spring hits) is to create some bog areas on the edges - make a wide and/or deep "shelf" that is a couple inches below the water line, and then use something as a divider between this bog and the main pond. Bricks, stacked rocks, wood planks, etc can work as dividers - just depends on what look you're going for (I'll be using Trex-type composite lumber). Fill in behind the divider with dirt and you have your moist soil/bog area. Combine this with the edge treatment above and you probably wouldn't be able to tell where the yard ends and the pond begins if you pick the plants right.

There is in fact a shallow area through the middle! About 12" deep. I was so disgusted when I(we..DH)was digging and found the phone lines going into the house!!!!!! We did not damage them but had to leave the soil under them for support of course!!! There really is no other location that will work in my yard. Really ticked me off...lol. Hopefully it will work well for the plants I intend to get this next week. I will set them on bricks to bring them to the surface if needed. I put the pump in the far end to make sure the circulation kept going throughout the pond. No dead water areas. As far as heron go I am hoping that my dogs and cats will keep them away. I have not had a problem with the cat fishing as of yet. They have so far(crossing my fingers).I do occasionally see them(Herons)flying over my house. I am kind of surrounded by swampy areas and lakes so they have plenty of other resources. I must say I am darn proud of my skippy filter. I love the pot. I found it at Menards. I still need to finish the edging and will do this with smaller river rocks held in place by landscape edging. It will make it easier to mow around then the rough edge of the bigger rocks. Thanks so much again for all of your help and input.

To post pictures: You need to first download your pictures to your computer. Then join something like photobucket.com It is free and allows you to download pictures to an album. Just follow the instructions for downloading to your album. When your pictures are downloaded and you look them up in your album there will be 4 lines underneath the pictures. Just highlight and right click to copy the Html Code line the third line, starting with the >a. Go back here to the Post a Follow-Up. In the message area right click and paste and you will see several lines of gobbledegook. When you preview you will see your picture. Then you can go to the correction area and add your text and them submit when you are ready. You can go back and forth to add more pictures with your back arrow. It really is not hard to learn. If I could do it anyone can. If you have further questions, just ask.Glenda

Joann, Another beautiful pic of your pond and babies. I never tire of seeing your pics. I would love to be able to rock the bottom of my stream, but I can't afford to buy more rocks this year. But I do think I like the idea of using fist sized rocks instead of smaller ones when I can rock it. I don't know if they will look too big though since the stream is only 2' wide. I have the liner laid in place and am just waiting for the seam tape to come in to attach the stream to the pond. I was just hoping someone had some pics of their stream without rocks that I could see. Thanks everyone. Sandi