Perhaps I am missing an obvious point, but your description is unclear to me. I'm guessing by 'right', you mean 'left', and I have no idea where the 'bottom' of the waterfall is supposed to be. does it spill from the retaining wall?, or the walkway? or somewhere else? I'm guessing that you will need liner but others will be able to help if the layout is clearer.

added some remarks on the picture, hope now it's clear (same picture)

I see a lot of seams where there could be substantial water loss as well as lots of dirt and debris. I would use some sort of liner but I can see where it would be very tempting to use the existing stone that is in place.
Those natural seams are always going to cause problems, even if you seal them with cement.

agree. i was afraid of it as well though using the natural stone seemed appealing to me. thanks for heads up!

Even if you tried to use just the cliff the water would wash out the sides. The good news is you won't have to lay out "steps" for your stream--just follow the contours of the cliff area. Make sure you bring up enough liner on the sides and line the sides with rocks (liner behind). Looks like potential for awesome stream and pond.

i'm not an expert at this at all. but i have natural stone from the river for my waterfall and i don't think that are causeing problems. ( although that may be part of my light tanning problem with my water. idk) but any how. if it was me this is what i would do. i would wash the rocks real good. pull up some of them so that i could use them like a spill way type thing.. where the water runs over and down to the next rocks. i would put in large rocks on the side, and lots of little rocks in the water fall area to make it look more natural. then i would make my pond bellow the end of the water fall area but with a drop off so the watter will run over the last rock with a drop off area for the water to to in the pond. ( i hope that makes scence). then i would run water down the water fall and find the leaks and fill them in with the waterfall foam stuff. they have that at lowes for 15.00 a can.

but it may be cheaper to find linner on ebay - i paid like 35.00 for 12x12 piece, pull up your rocks, dig out a bit, lay the liner and then use your rocks back in the water fall. i used sand to build up the sides of mine since it is on top of concreate and then laid my rocks. and use the foam to fill it all in. i got all my rocks from the river. alot of rocks for my landscaping and ponds. i just scrubed them real good before i put them in..

the thing that helped me the most with my ideas was doing an image search on google for rock water falls. and i looked and looked at other peoples and then took a bit from a bunch to come up with my own style..

any how i hope this gives you some ideas.

have a great day, shalom laura

The project is done. On the picture before/after state.

You have done a great job. It looks very natural. Was this what you saw in your mind before you got it built?

Cool

Very nicely done.

That turned out just awesome. Very lovely.

~dianne

Maybe you've found a new careeer? Mighty fine

Thanks for the compliments.

The idea was quite set from the beginning but the stone work was very much unpredictable so some improvisation has taken place. The plants and the lights were are totally ad-hock as well as the fish - was afraid it would be very problematic to maintain the appropriate conditions but the store guys convinced me to try - so far the fish is enjoying the pond:-)

Adding another picture with the lilies blooming.

Looks like you got "pond-a-itous" which is non-curable you know!! Thanks for sharing your project

Wow, what a change! Nicely done!

It is nicely done. Wow. How I wish I have that big space in my backyard. The natural rock shapes enhance the beauty pretty well.

How often do you have to add water?
Mike

I'd say once a week. Putting the hose for 5-7 mins. It also depends how much I open the pump (if it's full volume the waterfall is quite loud and it's hard to sit close:-) and how hot it is outside.

I was wondering just how much wicking was going on without a liner. I thought you might have much more than that.
Good job!
Mike

I did use liner at the end. even with it it was tricky

...and forgot to say that fish started breeding! Out of 12 gold fishes we've got now 6 new. Eager to see how they survive winter (Atlanta).