Water Gardening: Revamping old concrete pond, 1 by ilovedahlias

ilovedahlias wrote:
Our home came with this concrete pond. The first year we tried to patch it with concrete crack filler but it still leaks very quickly. The pond has a pipe that can be used to add water and an outgoing pipe to drain it (into the driveway). The literature I have read all seems to use pond liners these days. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for me here. I would like to get the pond going in the next couple of years. It is on the south side of the house and in full sun. This picture is taken in late winter so it looks pretty bare and right now you can see it is filled with leaves. I don't have many plantings on this side of the house yet. The groundcover around the bottom of the pond is mostly chicks and hens and various low sedums, which is a good solution right now as the incline is mostly rock with very little soil and gets full sun so the very little soil there is very dry. I heard that the original owner used to have roses growing up those trellises.

I was thinking that the slope of the pond lended itself to a little shelf at the top part with a short waterfall/stream into the lower part. In fact, if you start filling up the pool, you cannot fill it up all the way to the top without the water starting to spill over the edges of the bottom. Hope that makes sense. So, I was thinking of adding some larger rocks to the upper part to fill it in a bit and a flat rock at the top to create a waterfall/short stream. But I am not sure if what I am envisioning is actually going to work. Also, any ideas of blending in the edges with the landscape? How can I stop the leaking? Should I add a pond liner? If so, how can I blend the edges in with the concrete edges of the pond? Thanks for any ideas!! I would love to get this working someday and add some water sounds to my landscape!