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For the most part, the equipment sets that power pool and spa systems are placed outdoors in spaces near their watershapes. Maybe that's behind a gate along the side of the house, or behind some shrubs or a wall in a corner of the yard. Wherever they go, these equipment clusters should be positioned so that the noise made by various motors and pumps isn't so pronounced that it
Several months ago, a big idea crossed my mind and wouldn’t go away. For years now, I’ve been making videos about what I do as a pond designer and installer, and several of these recordings have appeared through WaterShapes EXTRA and WaterShapes.com in the past year or so. What if (I thought to myself), instead of covering things randomly, I switched over to a systematic approach and took the whole
We water and landscape professionals literally shape the outdoor environments in which we work – cutting grades, building walls, planting trees, installing pools, ponds and fountains and preparing patios, decks, planting beds and lighting systems. In designing these outdoor-living spaces, we spend the bulk of our time
It’s one of the unavoidable results of living in urban or suburban areas: People who dwell in mostly built environments feel cut off from nature. This, of course, is one of the reasons why ponds and streams have become so popular among so many homeowners. Adding spice to the sauce, I’ve found in recent years that this desire for naturalistic watershapes and elaborate gardens has also been attended by a desire on the parts of many of my clients to attract various forms of wildlife to participate in the setting. And it’s not just about fish in their ponds: With increasing frequency, my clients are also asking me to design and build spaces that will comfortably host a variety of creatures, including
As much as I love cold weather, I have to concede that we experienced way too much of a good thing this past winter. Long periods of extremely cold weather are the norm in many other parts of the country, and plants survive. Here, however, our local plants may be accustomed to surviving the isolated sub-freezing night, but sustained, frosty temperatures lasting nearly a week are something they weren't meant to handle. I'm sure you've seen the results of our cold snap in the news: Much of the state's citrus population - yes, coincidentally, the wonderful treats I wrote about in last month's column - has sustained long-term damage and the trees in many cases will take two years and more to recover. And that doesn't just affect us here: The rippling effects will be felt in
As much as I love cold weather, I have to concede that we experienced way too much of a good thing this past winter. Long periods of extremely cold weather are the norm in many other parts of the country, and plants survive. Here, however, our local plants may be accustomed to surviving the isolated sub-freezing night, but sustained, frosty temperatures lasting nearly a week are something they weren't meant to handle. I'm sure you've seen the results of our cold snap in the news: Much of the state's citrus population - yes, coincidentally, the wonderful treats I wrote about in last month's column - has sustained long-term damage and the trees in many cases will take two years and more to recover. And that doesn't just affect us here: The rippling effects will be felt in
