Natural Water Habitat in Your Backyard

CHRIS SIEWING is owner and president of Nature’s Re-Creations, nationally recognized as Master Certified Aquascape Contractors, first place winner of the North American Pond/Waterfall Competition and named by Aquascape as Artist of the Year in 2012. Nature’s Re-Creations stays on the cutting edge of technology and installation techniques to continually improve their projects and the environment. To discuss a water feature project, you can contact Chris Siewing at 314-220-3841 or check out their gallery at RecreateNature.com or their amazing portfolio at Facebook.com/NaturesReCreations.

PONDLESS WATERFALL

A Natural Water Habitat in Your Own Back Yard

BY CHRIS SIEWING

water feature isn’t just

Alandscaping, it is a way of life. A well-designed water feature offers increasing pleasure as it matures. Over the years, you will notice changes in its appearance. It is, after all, a living thing. It evolves with the seasons, attracts birds and butterflies and it becomes a calming retreat from the stresses of everyday life. A well-designed water feature is planned to be interacted with. Not just outside, but from inside the house as well. This usually requires placing the feature so it is visible from inside the house, and directing the waterfall toward the house as well. By doing this, you will not only offer a line of sight, but it will throw the pleasing sounds toward the windows, so you can be serenaded by cascading water. It is important to keep your water garden to scale without going overboard. Homeowners are drawn to the idea of large waterfalls in their backyard, but if not sized properly, they can look unnatural instead of blending into the landscape. You want to create something that appears to have been placed there by Mother Nature herself. This can be a challenge when locating the pond close to the house. In most cases, it requires working against the natural grade of the lot, using retaining walls and berms to get the waterfall to the proper height. But even a minimal elevation change can produce beautiful waterfalls that are to scale with the surrounding landscape. The pondless waterfall is one of the fastest growing options in water features today. It provides a natural-looking waterfall without a visible body of water. It offers all the sounds of natural falls, and allows for many varieties of plants along the stream sections to adorn the water garden. You can have a natural looking feature, without having to worry about the safety of an open body of water or pond. This makes these great for young children, front yards or commercial settings. A natural looking pond will use different shapes and sizes of rock. To better integrate your feature into the natural surroundings, a few extra boulders or outcropping stones in the existing landscape provide good transition between the pond and your yard. The use of rock in your supporting landscape also allows you to create level beds for tall, vertical accents such as trees and shrubs. It is important in the planning phase to consider that when installing a water garden, you get two features - daytime and nighttime. Especially with a pond, when it is lit up at night, you can view your fish and other underwater features in a whole different way. Some people mostly enjoy their ponds at night because they work during daytime hours. If you want to be able to enjoy your pond at night, then you want to consider adding underwater lights to your design. Underwater lights are great for adding that extra “wow” factor to your backyard when you are entertaining friends and family.