ARTICLES Archives - Page 148 of 312

Getting into Aquatic Plants

At the start, a large number of ponds are all about the fish. From the planning stages through to completion, the goal is to create an environment in which koi and other beautiful specimens will thrive in an environment that is both balanced and self-sustaining. There’s a lot that goes into making these miniature ecosystems work, from good circulation and filtration systems to including places where the fish can retreat from the sun and predators. But when all is said and done, the key to achieving ongoing, sustainable balance has less to do with technology than it does with Mother Nature and

Suburban Spaces

You really can find opportunities in unexpected places, insists Mehrnoosh, a Los Angeles architect and designer who enjoys making refined aesthetic statements in previously plain suburban environments. To illustrate her point, she takes us to a project in a modest neighborhood to define how simple architectural and landscape elements – and water – can bring elegance and tranquility to otherwise overlooked and underappreciated spaces.

Test Your Knowledge #39

Swimming Lake Michigan To Raise Public Awareness

Ripples #50

Compiled and Written by Lenny Giteck Now that the 2012 Olympics have come to an end, a few final Ripples items on the event… Michael Phelps: The Greatest Olympian Since Sliced Bread? An opinion piece in the Kansas City Star — which also appeared on the newspaper’s

Drum Roll, Please!

In my lengthy publishing career, I’ve experienced a whole pile of rollouts and launches – more than a dozen new magazines, almost as many books and a few Web sites. Truth be told, none of them were ever as long in the making or as painstaking in the details as the one that occurred a few days ago, when the new WaterShapes.com took flight. We started working on this remastering project

The Toughest Option

In approaching big jobs with challenging access issues, sometimes you get lucky and can figure out an excavation solution that doesn’t involve the one we had no choice but to use in the project shown in this video. In other entries in this series, I’ve shown how to get the digging done with mini-Bobcats, conveyor systems and big disposal chutes. This time, we had a situation in which none of those options

The Right Moves

Building a pond is a relatively simple task – so much so that many people start the process without having given it enough thought. The problems that arise from this hastiness are so common (and in some cases so devastating) that we at Aquascape now refer to them as the “Ten Blunders that Get in the Way of Pond Success.” Before putting spade to soil – and no matter whether this is your first pond or your fiftieth – run through

Eyes on the Skies

Among the wonderful benefits of working in the custom watershaping business is that you never really know what sort of projects will wander into view. Through the years, we at Live Water Creations of Santa Rosa, Calif., have certainly participated in developing and executing some unusual designs, but I can honestly say that working on one that included a huge, beautiful steel pyramid topped by a deep-space telescope was something that

Test Your Knowledge #38

At the London Olympics: Just Say ‘Nope’ to Dope!

Beauty in Reserve

In one of my very first Travelogues (see the October 26, 2011 edition of WaterShapes EXTRA!), I wrote about Washington’s Bainbridge Island – and more specifically about Bloedel Reserve and its large reflecting pool, which was showcased by Kelly Klein in Pools, her wonderful coffee-table book. I’ve just returned from another trip to the island and once again