Roots piercing pond liner!

There are two plants close to the pond. Mussaenda and Brugmansia. The stems of these are just 30 inches from edge of the pond. The roots piercing the liner must be from the Mussaenda as it is in a straight line to that stem, on the side. I had expected it one day or other. But it has come a bit sooner in my judgment. Now what I'm going to do is remove the liner in that part and repair it from outside after reducing the water level and cutting the roots. It will be some work! I do not want to change anything as the pond has settled very nicely. I just noticed it last week while relaxing there with coffee.

Any ponders have faced a similar problem? In that case, what has been done? Would you kindly share it with me? The white one is the root.

Dinu

Dinu,

Are you loosing water? If you aren't then the root may not have pierced the liner. Is it a rubber liner are plastic?

I had roots run on top of the liner and I just cut the roots. No water loss at all.

Jeri

It's tough plastic. Water level is reducing slowly by about half an inch every day. May be cutting the protruding part will help temporarily?

My pond wasn't losing water. I think my roots were on top of the liner but behind the rocks. How are you gonna patch it?

Jeri

Electric insulation tape. I have done such repairs to this liner when ants had scratched up from behind to make the liner thin and then give way into little holes at about 15 places! It was successfully done. So this also could find that method. To some larger holes, I had pasted the same plastic cut from another corner of the sheet with adhesive. It too has stayed well for more than a year now.

If it wasn't for the water loss I wouldn't have worried but lossing water is bad. It would definately be worth a try. Your pond is so pretty I hope you can save it.

Jeri

Dinu, that sounds like a good plan to me. You might also want to put a hard barrier of some kind there between the soil and the pondliner. If the roots grew through the liner there you know they will do so again. Anything hard that would not rot should work, that way the roots will hit the barrier and turn rather than going through the liner. Around here the plastic gallon containers that milk and juice come in work perfectly for that. They are tough but thin and flexible. Just cut off the top and bottom and cut through the middle and you will have a plastic strip to put over the trouble spot. Put the liner back in place and the weight of the water will hold the plastic strip where it should be. Since the plastic is so thin it should not be noticable or cause any stress on the liner. Another thought would be to put some old carpet strips there to serve as a barrier. That is what I put under my liner before I filled my small pond. It served as a cushion and a barrier for roots of various kinds. The place I put the small pond (about 6 feet by 6 feet and about 20 inches deep) is near a large bayberry shrub and an arbor with a climbing rose. It has been there for a couple of years with no problems so far.

Many thanks for the good ideas. I will use the barrier method with some old plastic jerry cans to divert the roots to run parallel to the liner. Things that are attracted to termites are out of question. They consume them within a week!