Whether you are installing a garden pond for the first time or fixing up an old pond, there is nothing more annoying than noticing wrinkles in your pond liner. Wanting to know how to get wrinkles out of your pond liner is only natural, but there is good news and bad news….
The bad news is that it is unlikely you will ever get ALL the wrinkles out of your pond liner. The good news is that there are a few tips and tricks you can use to reduce the number of wrinkles there are, and to make the ones that are there less visible.
Why Remove Wrinkles From Your Pond Liner?
There are a few good reasons as to why it is important to know how to get wrinkles our of your pond liner:
The first reason is obvious; large wrinkles are ugly, especially if your pond is shallow and you can see the bottom.
Wrinkles Trap Debris
The second, an probably more important reason is that wrinkles trap debris. If your pond is quite large and features a bottom drain then you want any debris that falls to the bottom of the pond to flow down towards the bottom drain, any wrinkles in the pond liner will stop this from occurring.
Avoid Wrinkles in your Pond Liner
The first step to avoiding wrinkles in your pond liner is to follow the correct installation methods. You can see a full guide here on installing a flexible liner garden pond, but we will go through the basic steps required to avoid wrinkles here.
When Filling Your Pond with Water
Slowly fill your pond with water, as the water covers the wrinkles use your hands and feet to push any wrinkles in the pond liner to the side walls. The weight of the water will prevent the wrinkles from returning.
Image credit:The Pond Digger
Don’t fill the pond too fast as you need to take your time with this and it’s easy for the pond to get too full before you have removed as many wrinkles as possible. You will be tempted to turn the hose up and work faster, but I highly recommend taking it slowly.
It helps to have someone helping you with this, as one person can pull the liner up to remove the wrinkles while the other smooths the liner out with their hands.
Depending on the shape of your pond, it will likely be easiest to do this by working in circles, moving from the center outwards.
Don’t forget to pull the slack out of the pond walls as you go.
Managing Sidewall Wrinkles in Your Pond Liner
No matter what you do, you will not be able to have your pond walls completely wrinkle free. What you can do, is manage these wrinkles by consolidating them into larger folds.
Round pond liners can be folded at regular intervals, square liners can be folded into the corners.
You will need to do this as the pond nears being full of water so that the liner is held into place. You can also use pond tape to help.
Cover Up Remaining Pond Liner Wrinkles
As I mentioned, depending on the shape and size of your pond, it may not be possible (or even required) to get rid of all the wrinkles in your pond liner. In these cases you can follow these tips to hide the wrinkles as much as possible.
- Use rocks or other pond decorations to cover up the wrinkles
- Place pond plants over the top of any noticeable wrinkles
More Information on Garden Ponds
- How to build a garden pond
- Pond lighting guide
- Choose the best water pump for your pond
- Choosing the right pond liner
