Garden Tips & Resources

Archive for the ‘Water Garden’ Category

Creating a beautiful garden isn’t limited to just putting out pretty colorful flowers each year. In fact, there’s a wide variety of things you can do to decorate your garden, make it unique, and turn it into a serene sanctuary you’ll never want to leave.

Growing a full fledged garden with mature plants, trees, bushes, shrubs, elaborate garden beds and containers, lush grassy areas, garden furniture and other decorations takes a lot of time to do. And while you can have it all fairly quickly by hiring a professional landscaping firm to set it all up for you, taking the time to do it your way is half the fun.

And one of the best features you can add to your own garden spaces are those which involve water. Water features in the garden can range from small and simple, to large and elaborate too, it’s all up to what you personally want for your own garden spaces.

Here are some of the most common water garden features most people love to have included though…

Bird Baths – One of the most simple water features you can add to the garden is a simple premade bird bath. These are wonderful to use as both a yard and garden decoration, and as a way to attract more birds to your garden areas too.

A bird bath can be as simple as a small container filled with water, a water bowl placed on a pedestal, or a work of art which includes a little bubbling water fountain in the middle too.

Backyard Ponds – Another popular and fairly simple way to add a water feature to your garden is to put in a small backyard pond. Now this can be installed anywhere you’d like of course, and these can usually be purchased in kit form too so they’re easy to get set up.

Water Gardens – Water gardens can also be fairly easy to set up, particularly if you create them in a small ready-made pond or you create a container water garden. Larger and more elaborate water gardens can be created too of course.

Fountains & Waterfalls – These are quite popular as water features in the garden, because the movement of the water provides a soothing tranquility that helps relieve stress and block out background noises. Waterfalls and fountains can be small and free standing, wall mounted, or large and installed in the middle of a pond too.

No water garden is quite complete without some type of marsh land plantings around it. Now, these work best for in ground water gardens, but you may be able to get them to grow and flourish around smaller container based water gardens too. Essentially, all you need to do is be sure the water from your water garden seeps out into the surrounding area slowly, or have additional containers around your water garden which simply hold soggy soil.

In nature, marshland plants – also known as marginal water plants – grow in the soggy soil next to lakes and ponds. And with a bit of planning and attention, you can recreate this natural beauty for your own water gardens and ponds too.

Many large man made ponds which are designed for putting into the ground have various levels built into them. The shallow levels are at the outer edges of the pond, and these are often referred to as shelves. These are where the marshland plants tend to be grown. If you create – or hire someone to create – a completely natural pond of course, then you can plan for these soggy growth areas to occur naturally.

Many backyard pond lovers use the damp soil conditions around their pond to create lush, tropical style gardens. You can of course, design any marshland style you’d like though, as long as you select plants which will thrive in the wet environment around your pond.

Not only do these marshland areas provide you with more greenery, shade, and beauty, they also provide local wildlife additional refuge too. Over time you may find you’ve attracted a number of birds, reptiles, butterflies and other creatures to your wet land areas and pond.

Cardinal flowers are popular marginal water plants, and these grow from two to four feet high. They have toothed leaves and produce tubular red flowers, with bloom times usually in July.

A Bengal Tiger Canna is another beautiful plant for putting at the edge of your water garden. This has pretty orange flower blooms, and lush green leaves with yellow stripes.

Calla lilies are loved by most gardeners, for both their pure white flowers and their heady scent. And these grow quite well at the edge of a water garden too.

There are of course hundreds of other types of plants you can choose for the wet areas around your garden pond, so be sure to research different ones, and ask at your local nursery too. If you have a water garden specialty store in your area, then go there first, because they’re usually run by experts who can offer many more suggestions, tips, and advice in creating your own water garden or pond.

When you’re ready to create a lush water garden in your own yard… it doesn’t matter whether you’re creating a small container based water garden or you’re putting in a full fledged garden pond: One of the biggest problems you’ll have is that there are so many gorgeous plants you can choose from to put in it.

Water garden plants are simply beautiful. Almost always lush and colorful, they come in all shapes, sizes and textures. And you’ll quickly find that you’re able to try new plants and flowers in your water garden, that you’ve never been able to try growing before. So a whole new world of gardening opens up to you.

Everyone has to start somewhere of course, so here we’ll look at several different types of water garden plants that you might like to try growing:

Water Lilies – No water garden is quite complete without at least one water lily, but be warned: There are tons of different kinds to choose from! You can get water lilies in almost any color of the rainbow, and they have a wide variety of flower shapes and textures too.

Water lilies float on the water, so depending on the size of your water garden or pond, you may have to limit yourself with just one. If you have a larger in ground water pond area though, try out several types to see which ones you like best.

Other types of plants which also float on the water that you might like to try include water poppies and water clover.

Putting underwater plants into your water garden will help provide the pond oxygen and remove extra nutrients too, which helps prevent algae growth. In other words, these plants help keep your pond and water garden clean naturally.

There are different types of plants which grow fully submerged in your water garden, so you may want to look around and see which ones sound best to you. Like any other plants, they can vary in size, shape, texture and color too. A Dwarf Sagittaria for instance, looks a lot like grass and even produces tiny white flowers which can be seen on the water’s surface when in bloom. A Cabomba on the other hand, has fan like foilage which can range from green to purple in color.

Lotus Plants – A Lotus plant doesn’t sit on the water surface. Instead, it hold it’s leaves several feet above the surface of the water, and the flowers bloom above those leaves. The leaves of these are circular in shape, and putting these into your water garden provides another height dimension which adds additional interest and beauty.

Cattails – These and other plants like them tend to be the taller varieties of water plants. They grow several feet tall, and are often found around the edges of your water garden or pond.

To fully finish off your water garden or pond with finesse though, you should also plant marsh loving plants too. We’ll look at those in another article.