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A pool is the eye of the garden in whose candid depths is mirrored its advancing grace.
– Louisia Bebe Wilder

How often it is that a garden,
beautiful though it be,
will seem sad and dreary and lacking in one of its most gracious features,
if it has no water.
- Pierre Husson

 

Here in our High Prairie Savannah climate, there are few things that bring impact to a garden like water can. In a desert, an oasis feels like a slice of heaven.

While it’s generally the visual impact of water that people think about when they’re considering a water feature, it’s nearly always the sound and the total gestalt of water in the garden that people appreciate most once the water feature is in place. It’s a “feeling” that water can lend to a space and a garden.

There’s a holistic and joyful sense that the sound of water brings to a garden, and that sound can be achieved in many ways. Though many people enjoy what a pond brings to a garden, it’s not always necessary to have a “pond” per-se in order to enjoy the gestalt of water. It’s actually more common in garden design to implement running water without the underlying pond.

There are a number of factors that will determine the best implementation for each garden, but it’s often a single rock with a gentle film of water running over it, or a pot that seems to have an endless trickle dropping off its rim. It could even be a significant waterfall that seems to fall into a bed of rocks and disappear.

For big impact, there are few things like a pond with colorful Koi, or a large waterfall splashing into deeper water.

While it’s wonderful to have this sort of feature in your garden, the reality is that many gardens and settings simply don’t lend themselves to this sort of feature.

There are some of us who love to have a pond with fish that we can tinker with. We love to feed the fish, and mess with the plants. Others look for a low or no maintenance way to get the wonder of water into their garden.

Water features require good planning and design so they’re in harmony with the garden that they’re part of, and also in harmony with the lifestyle of the gardener.

 

By means of water, we give life to everything. - Koran,  21:30

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water;
she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
- Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Sun

We call upon the waters that rim the earth,
horizon to horizon, that flow in our rivers and streams,
that fall upon our gardens and fields,
and we ask that they teach us
and show us the way.
- Chinook Indian Blessing