Vertical garden, pond and fire pit area

[Wados]

Pretty stoked with how this turned out. It is super relaxing and tranquil. Spent quite a few weekends slowly building it all but i think the end result was worth it. 

There is a 3m high vertical garden, with Waterfall down the middle, pond with glass inlays and a fire pit area to make a nice contrast in energies.

 

This is what I started with basically I had a bit of a nothing area next to my pool. Not that you can see it overly well but I had an existing 100mm square post for the shade sail.

I got another 100mm post and sunk it in a heap of concrete. I used 90x45 treated pine for the backing. I had to use 2.4m because I couldn't get anything else. Exterior hardyboard was used to cover it. 

2 layers of builders plastic over the cement sheet and then the felt pockets. I used these as they are much cheaper than alternative methods.

I wanted a Waterfall down the middle so I used marine ply, sealed it with a waterproof tile paint and used the stacked slate tiles that are just from bunnings. 

And filled it with a heap of cuttings.... alot of cuttings.

Next I dug out and prepared the small concrete slab for the pond.  100mm of crusher dust and a bunch of rebar.

I did a step down in the middle which meant 2x pours, this did make the concreting a bit easier. 100 series besser blocks was used to make the step 

Then came the besser blocks for the walls. This was a very tedious process, because I made the pond a weird shape all the corners are at strange angles. This meant all the blocks had to be cut. Hindsight would have tried to get design the pond so it a square

The waterproofing came next. I first used cromlin pond sealant, however this was a mistake. When they say that the concrete needs to be really dry they aren't kidding. I did 2x coats and the whole thing bubbled. This is because the garden needed watering so I couldn't get the concrete to be completely dry. So Anyways pulled it all up and used betta pond sealant which is much more forgiving.  

I built the bench seating next, pretty easy just a bunch of treated pine and merbu decking timber. 

Ievelled the area and got some paver sand in

The pavers just came from bunnings, they are the 600x400 porcelain pavers with the light grey granite paver as a edging paver. I used the ryobi tile saw but hindsight would have hire a proper unit. The tile saw did struggle a little bit but it got the job done.

I made the furniture next, just a simple storage box that I copied off the diy bunnings page, and matching table. I inlayed a piece of cortan steel into the middle as I had a piece laying around. 

I wanted to have the pond with a natural filtration system. So the water is pumped from the main pond to the back section. For the back section, the bottom 400mm is empty space made using aluminium tube and plastic mesh. Followed by large rock to 1mm drainage gravel topped with plants. The roots and bacteria should filter the water. The trouble is the  water from the garden has too many tannins so it's a little discoloured, hoping that it will clean itself up eventually. The fish don't seem to mind.

Finally I used the rgb holman garden lights so it all lights up at night. Makes it quite a sight to see.

One thing I have found while the spotlights are great, the pond lights are shocking bad no where near waterproof. Out of the 4x sets all of them have a at least one light out. 

[Jason]

So good @Wados! Many thanks for sharing. You will certainly get plenty of admirers of your creation. 

Let me be the first to extend a very warm welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. We're certainly keen to see more of your handiwork on the site soon. Please post anytime you have something to share or need a hand. You'll find there's loads of people in the community sharing helpful advice on the site every day, as well as plenty of ideas and inspiration for that next project. 

Jason

[Mayzilla]

Love what you did here! We have been looking at putting a vertical garden around our pool area. 
Where did you get the felt pockets from? Also any advice on what plants you used? 

[Wados]

Yeah the felt pockets just came from ebay i think it was like $25m2. Bunnings does sell a system but it gets pretty expensive.  

The plants are the difficult part, this was my 3rd vertical garden I built at home and I still had to redo a section of it. 

It takes alot of plants this one had 400 or so individual ones. So I only used plants that spilt super easy and are quite hardy. 

From the top is, featherfalls, golden sedum, peperomia, a variegated sedum and then peace lily's.  Peace lily's are super easy to spilt, they will basically regrow from a single stem and single root. Sedum will regrow from basically nothing. I have also tried calthea and tactor seat plants, they work ok. Also rheoe does really well, but will need to be chopped back every few months. Careful using any vine like plants as they will take over your wall as well.

What plants you can use really depends on how much sun it gets. Ideally you can get your wall to pick up a couple of hours of the morning sun, more in winter less in summer.

[EricL]

Hello @Wados

Wow! What an amazing makeover of your garden area. That garden wall is just amazing and your paving layout looks great. No doubt the water will eventually get filtered out given enough time. I suppose you could add some more pebbles to increase the filtration of the water, but just be aware that it will slow the water down significantly. I'm really curious, how did you attach the glass panels to the pond? Was it before you put the pond sealer in or after the pond sealer was on? 

Any other extra information you can share about the garden makeover would be very much appreciated.

Thank you for sharing your beautiful garden makeover.

Eric

[Wados]

Hi Eric 

Thanks. I expect once the plants grow a bit more the filter should work better, I'll give it a month or 2 and see how it goes.

For the glass im definitely no expert here more just trial and error from previous projects around the house. I used 15mm tempered glass from a local supplier. 

I waterproofed the pond first with the pond sealant, then with a angle grinder made a ~5mm deep notch out the besser blocks where the glass is going. Then used selleys marine flex to attach an aluminium channel, just the metal mate 20mm stuff. After which I attached the glass panel to the channel with clear pool silicon.  Not sure if this is the best way to do it but it works for me