pond
In my lengthening career as a landscape designer and installer, I have worked on every aspect of a variety of residential and commercial projects - indoors and outdoors; on backyards, sideyards and front yards; on formal gardens, wild meadows and stands of trees; and on pools, spas, fountains, ponds, streams, waterfalls and more. I enjoy every part of the projects that come my way, but
The weight of conventional wisdom opposes me here, but I love using bamboo around many of the ponds we install. In the right setting with a pond large enough that the vertical plants are appropriately scaled to the horizontal watershape, bamboo looks great, grows rapidly and brings a wonderful architectural look to the composition - not to mention great sound when
I live beside a lake on a property that also includes the headquarters for my business, Floating Island International (Shepherd, Mont.). The lake serves as our laboratory, and my near-constant proximity to it means that I've gotten to watch how the water has changed through the years. It's been an upward spiral: The water keeps getting clearer, cleaner and
When I started my pond company as a teenager in 2002, I had no clear idea how Laughing Waters (Palos Heights, Ill.) would evolve in subsequent years. At the time my first article appeared in WaterShapes in 2007, I was basically a 22-year-old bundle of energy with more ambition than experience. In the decade since then, our energy has become more focused, the company has grown to take on a full range of major residential and commercial projects and, with experience, our ambition has
He's a longtime believer in using naturalistic approaches in pond design and installation. But lately, Mike Gannon has also spent some time questioning that foundation -- and wondering out loud if there might be value in looking at his design options in new and divergent ways.
