Jim, Author at Water Shapes

Working the Nitrogen Cycle

If you’re responsible for keeping up a watergarden, you probably know how important including a good balance of aquatic plants and fish is to sustaining a healthy ecosystem. You also likely know that some basic maintenance is important, too – including chores such as

#6: ‘Hidden’ Skimmer

This was a fun project in lots of ways – not the least of which involved figuring out how to fit a skimmer into the system without completely disrupting the clean look of the coping-only treatment of the pool’s perimeter. Usually, of course, pools at grade level are

Keeping Control

‘As watershape designs have become more creative, more competitive and ultimately more valuable to our clients than we once were, it’s natural that we have started paying more attention to protecting our output.’ That’s how Brian Van Bower began in his July 2008 Aqua Culture column. He continued: ‘This is indeed a large and important issue for many people in our business, virtually to the point where watershapers are now facing the same sorts of concerns that have preoccupied architects and landscape architects for decades. And we’ve caught up with our colleagues at

Conflicted Interests

The other day, a friend sent me a link to an Australian web site promoting a town council’s campaign to get homeowners to convert their swimming pools into ponds. I know of several watershapers who get involved in these sorts of projects stateside; in fact, WaterShapes EXTRA once featured a pool-to-pond transformation in which an old, unused pool became a great display pond for a garden center (linked below). The point that grabbed my attention