pond design
Jets and sprays are welcome additions to ponds because they look great. But if the designer or installer follows a few key guidelines outlined here by Roy Watkins, the list of benefits will expand to include an overall improvement in water quality and a healthier environment for fish.
'As modern building materials have been developed,' wrote Japanese garden specialist Douglas M. Roth in October 2003, 'we humans have been remarkably proficient at applying them in ways that go well beyond the vision of their inventors. Such is the case with roofing membranes, which now are widely used as liners for backyard streams and ponds. 'It's understandable that landscape designers and contractors have taken to these rubber liners. After all, they make pond and stream construction inexpensive and easy. But from the perspective of the Japanese gardener or quality watershaper, convenience and affordability alone do not
As I've gotten better at what I do as a watershaper, I've found that lots of the maturing has been related to getting really good at listening to my clients. Once I figured out how to attune myself to their visions and voices and set aside my ego (however temporary that might be), I found that my designs crackled with new energy I was borrowing from people who wanted my help in expressing themselves. That's the artistic, inspired side of watershaping, of course, and as my listening skills grew and my projects took on new and sometimes
In any large-scale watershaping project, managing the logistics has a way of becoming the most important task of all. In the case under discussion here, that might even be an understatement when you weigh all of the complicating factors. First, the job site was located in central Colombia, in the foothills of South America's Andes mountain range. Second, that locale is essentially a tropical rainforest, and when it wasn't pouring by the bucketful, it was crushingly hot and humid. Third, ours is a North American company that works with its own products and has no distribution in Colombia. And there's more: To get the job done, we knew we
Aquascape (St. Charles, IL) has unveiled Pond Filter Urns to provide efficient mechanical and biological…
Mike Gannon is always gratified when a do-it-yourself pond owner trusts him enough to seek his professional help. But as he relates in introducing this video on one such transformation, there's a single point he keeps very much in mind as he approaches the various tasks at hand.
EasyPro Pond Products (Grant, MI) makes bottom-drain kits for ponds that also include air diffuser.…
There was a time when lots of ponds were set up without gravel, notes Ed Beaulieu. But as he discusses here, there are so many advantages to lining their interiors with rocks of various sizes that it's time to push that old practice out of the pond-making picture, once and for all.
