Stone Garden Water Features

Ponds

• A small rock garden edging a jewel-sized artificial pond works in a front entry or a backyard. The pond can be a simple as a child's wading pool sunk into the ground, bordered with a jumble of piled and overhanging rocks and ground cover. Check with your local nursery to identify the most resilient plants for your area. A pump to aerate the water will help to keep the pond clean and a few water plants will add interest and discourage algae blooms. A Koi pond is larger, deeper and more complex to maintain, although it is beautiful surrounded by flat rocks and low boulders with plants growing from the crevices. A natural pond on the property is ready-made for a stone garden that will add interest to a corner of the pond and focus the eye. Larger stones, boulders and a few tall plants, such as a border of bamboo or a small evergreen conifer like Dwarf Balsam Fir, will balance the expanse of water. If the area gets some afternoon shade, Himalayan Blue Poppies are arresting blooms that grow tall enough to be seen. Welsh poppies are smaller and yellow, but just as colorful and easier to grow.

Waterfalls

• Falling water and rocks are natural companions. A stone garden with a waterfall can be as elaborate or minimal as your yard permits. The basic design is water pumped upward to fall over rocks. But, going beyond simple physics, there are a number of ways to design the waterfall. It can stream up through a scattering of rocks and slide over the rock garden's stones to vanish under them. The water can fall in slender ribbons over rocks and down into a shallow pool. A series of slate "steps" will allow water to fall from level to level before reaching a pool or stream. A very high precipice of boulders and a strong pump will shoot water out and down like a miniature Niagara. To mimic nature, the largest boulders or rocks are usually at the head of the waterfall with stones scattered along the stream bed or edge of the pool. Some of those boulders can actually be planters with grooves and pockets for vines or flowering ground cover to grow from them.

Fountains

• A rock garden fountain can be a Zen oasis with bamboo and river rock. A small rectangle of plastic-lined yard or garden covered evenly with large, smooth river rocks is the catchment for the water, funneling it invisibly to a recycling pump. At one end, a pile of carefully selected and varied large stones and small boulders is planted with a few grasses and green plants. Plain copper pipes, standing between eighteen to thirty-six inches tall, deliver water to horizontal "spouts" of hollow bamboo stems. This arrangement is the fountain that pours two or three streams of water from the bamboo tubes down over the bed of river rocks. Several containers of bamboo plants form a miniature grove. A simple stone bench near the planted rock fountain area provides a seat for contemplation.