There are a variety of ways of hiding the liner above the water level but the common method of using flat stones that project some way over the pond does not look right when used around an informal pond unless it is set in a lawn or alongside paving.

For ponds surrounded by plant beds and borders, and for wildlife ponds where you want to create easy access in and out of the pond, you need an alternative. Some place rounded stones or slate paddlestones around the pond and in the water to form a beach. However, unless you can integrate the stones with a scree effect over the surrounding beds, the result is a pond with a stone necklace, which doesn't always look good.

Some pond liner manufacturers also used to produce strips of gravel-embedded liner to drape over the edge of the pond, but again this needs integrating with the garden.

Our solution has been to create a pond-in-a-basket effect, using woven hurdles designed as lawn and flower bed edging. We've clamped them to the rigid pond edge and then held them in place with tent pegs bent to fit. They provide a ladder for frogs and other creatures, and distract the eye from the liner.

We originally use hazel edging, but when it eventually disintegrated after some years, we couldn't find any on sale, so used willow edging instead.

Woven willow hurdles

The hurdles we bought were higher than we needed, so we cut them down to size, and then used a high breaking strain fishing line to tie and hold the springy willow strands closer together.

The third image In the short video below shows three hurdles clamped to the pond edge, to give them a pre-soak and shape them a little. Although this worked well for the hazel hurdles, the willow ones were more springy and the pre-soak had little effect. However, we were able to curve the hurdles enough by bending them (carefully) over the knee.

You don't have to do this, but it certainly helps when fixing them to the pond edge. You need four hands for fitting each hurdle, or a G clamp as shown in the video.

Edging fixing

As mention above, we used metal tent pegs to fix the hurdles to the pond's side, avoiding damaging the liner. See diagram right:

Tent pegs are easy to obtain and sold in different qualities. However, the stronger the tent peg is, the harder it is to bend. You'll need strong hands, grips or a vice, and a hammer to bend them.

Also see part 1 of this video - Visit the beginning of this feature.