Some properties come with a project already waiting on them. When Mr. Jason bought his place in Oklahoma City, the quarter-acre pond out back had been sitting untouched for more than 20 years. Overgrown, silted in, and impossible to walk around. He could see it had potential. He needed someone who could take that potential and make it real.
We cleared the overgrowth, mucked out two decades of silt, and cut a walking path around the entire pond. Then we built a 40-foot dam, an 11-foot waterfall, and a three-pump recirculating system that keeps water spilling over the dam, and finished it with hardscaping throughout.
Mr. Jason had just bought the property, and the pond that came with it had been ignored for over two decades. Trees had grown in close to the water. Silt had filled the bottom. The back side was so overgrown you couldn’t walk around it at all. What should have been the highlight of the property had turned into an eyesore he looked at every day.
He could see the potential. What he needed was someone to lay out a clear vision for the pond and the equipment to handle every part of making it real. We gave him that vision and took the pond from an eyesore to the centerpiece of his property.
We split the project into two phases. The first got the pond clean and accessible. The second turned it into the feature Mr. Jason had pictured.
Before we started, you couldn't walk around the pond at all. The back side was completely blocked. We cut a walking path the full way around, so Mr. Jason and his family could get to every part of the water for the first time.
With the pond clean and open, we moved into the part that changes everything. We built a 40-foot-long, 5-foot-tall dam to hold the upper section of water and set the drop for the waterfall.
We built an 11-foot waterfall, 6 feet tall, feeding over the dam. This became the centerpiece, the piece that turns a pond into something you want to sit and look at.
We started by taking down the trees that had grown in around the water over the years. This opened the area up, gave us room to work, and let us see the full shape of the pond for the first time.
Twenty-plus years of silt had settled into the bottom. We mucked the pond out completely, pulling the accumulated sediment that had built up and cut into the pond's depth over time. This brought the pond back to its full capacity and gave us a clean base to build on.
We installed the pumps to drive the waterfall, then added a third pump that pulls water from the lower pond up into the upper pond. That water overflows the dam, runs down the waterfall, and flows back into the lower pond. The whole system recirculates on its own, keeping the water moving and the waterfall running.
We finished with hardscaping around the water features, setting stone and rock work to frame the dam, waterfall, and pond edges. This ties the whole feature together and gives it a clean, built-to-last look.
A pond that’s sat neglected for 20 years doesn’t tell you much about how it will behave once it’s rebuilt. After we mucked out two decades of silt, the real question was whether the rebuilt pond and new dam would seal and hold water the way they needed to.
We built the dam and prepared the base with the soil in mind, accounting for how the ground would hold and move water so the upper and lower ponds would stay full and the whole system could keep running.
The result is a pond that holds its water and a waterfall that runs without constant topping off.
— Mr. Rex, Northern Oklahoma
Whether you've got a neglected pond that needs cleaning out or you want to build a water feature from the ground up, we handle every phase from the first tree to the final pump.
