Combining water features – streams with multiple waterfalls, watercourses with several changes of direction or a large-scale pool and fountain – provides spectacular results. Lights, music, structural features and the unique plants in and around your feature increase the drama, as well as showcase your personal style and love for gardening.
Every water feature is inherently dramatic. Those that combine elaborate elements, exotic plants, lighting and other imaginative, eye-catching finishing touches are especially striking. They become the focal point for the entire landscape.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Watercourses are stylized streams bounded by linear or geometric sides. They match well with contemporary homes that feature clean, straight lines and bold colors. Adding waterfalls or riffles increases interest.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Consider statues made of anodized aluminum or other non-corrosive materials for use in a pond setting.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Include little surprises to reward curious visitors to your garden. Here, a ceramic gargoyle provides a playful central figure in the waterfall’s source pool.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/Yvonne Williams
“Dramatic” doesn’t necessarily mean “large” – any eye-catching water feature should be in scale and scope with the surrounding yard. Keep in mind that some of the most appealing natural glades are actually diminutive in scale, their charm amplified by packing many different features into a small space. You can enhance your feature a number of ways, whether it’s through aquatic plants, lighting or the help of a small bubbling fountain.
Varied edging and shoreline materials are another way to add pizzazz to your water garden’s look. Besides standard coping stones, consider a gently sloping pebble or sand beach, a wood deck over the water, or bridges or stepping-stones to span your feature’s general area. In addition to the aquatic plants growing in your water garden, container plants placed around the shoreline adds an extra burst of seasonal color that accessorizes your water feature, too.
Another way to add dramatic flair to a garden pond is to enhance it with watercourses, streams and waterfalls. A watercourse is to a pool as a stream is to a pond. Watercourses are generally straight and linear, while streams are natural, sinuous and irregular.
Put another way, watercourses are architectural streams. Like streams, they add moving water to a garden; unlike their natural counterparts, they reflect the materials and construction of the surrounding architecture and garden style. Consider a watercourse in a formal garden, either traditional or modern. Design one in a straight line with an even width, making square turns, and finish it with manufactured materials like pavers, tile, concrete or brick. The use and quantity of plants in a watercourse depends on your specific design. Placing symmetrical planting containers along the edge of a watercourse can be visually effective.
Streams create movement in a natural setting. An installed stream can mimic nature and provide a playful and sensual feature in your garden. In fact, the most successful garden streams imitate nature – even those that flow only a short distance. Their dimension, pace, plants and edges or banks are based on realistic, natural models. Streams look most natural when they meander through a garden, are edged with natural materials and include plants along the side. The stream’s size, style and finish must be considered in terms of the overall size of your yard, your intended effect and your garden style. Streams invite colorful pathways and bridges, expanding the enjoyment of both the feature and the garden that surrounds it.
In terms of construction, watercourses and streams are made of the same elements: a header pool or pond at the top of the feature, the channel itself, and a reservoir pool or pond at the bottom. Water moves by concealed pipes to the header pool, from a submersible pump located in or near the reservoir pool, which recirculates the water at an appropriate flow rate and volume. Even settings that are relatively flat can accommodate a simple watercourse or stream driven by a recirculating pump.
To keep a stream’s natural quality, occasionally change the direction of the water flow, creating small pools and currents that linger in the deeper sections of the bed. Watercourses, on the other hand, are best served by steady flows and consistent water levels. Your choice of a watercourse or stream depends on your garden style. Whichever you choose, it will bring excitement and drama to your landscape.
Waterfalls also enhance the motion, mood and impact of a garden, whether in a meandering stream or rushing watercourse.
The lip of the fall, called a spill stone, is key to a waterfall’s construction and determines its appearance: Flat, straight-edged rocks deliver smooth curtains of water; knobby, irregular stones or a rock series cause water to splash chaotically as it falls. When building a waterfall, consider the choice of the spill stone as carefully as you might the pump or finishing details.
The strength of a waterfall depends primarily on the stream’s flow rate, which is regulated more by the supply pipe and the recirculating pump’s pressure than by the slope of the stream. The pump should generate sufficient volume to replace the water’s volume at least twice per hour.
Waterfalls require a pump system that delivers a larger volume of water than pump systems serving simple streams or watercourses. (A pump that produces adequate flow in a level stream may be inadequate to service a waterfall.) This capacity is determined in a flow-rate measurement plus head rate, which measures how high the pump can lift water before it falls. The combination of both measurements must be considered if you want your waterfall to look natural.
Finally, add lights to your feature to increase the drama. Placed underwater, on the water surface or concealed among shoreline plants, lights both highlight the feature and extend its hours of enjoyment into the evening. Consider uplights placed in submerged planting containers, spotlights behind waterfalls to show the movement, and light fixtures attached to fountains. You might want to consider an audio system as well – hide speakers within plantings to add music or sound effects when entertaining or relaxing.
Let your imagination go as you design your water feature. Consider the range of water garden options, plants and accessories available, then add your sense of style to create dramatic results.
