Chosing The Water Feature for Your Garden

Are you contemplating adding a water feature to your garden? If so, to achieve the right style of water feature to suit your surroundings, it is important to reflect on the style of your landscaping. Making the wrong choice could result in your water feature looking out of place.

The following is a list of the most common garden styles and some suggestions for incorporating water features into these gardens. Don’t forget to take into account that many gardens are a fusion of 2 or 3 garden styles. So go ahead, with ideas from this list along with your own imagination, you’ll be able to create just the right water feature for your garden.

Australian Native Garden

No, you don’t have to live in Australia to create this garden. However, with the abundant use of corrugated iron, stone and timber, this rustic style of garden does draw on the unique characteristics of Australian materials and its natural colors. Modern Australian native plantings are often designed similar to a traditional cottage garden with the focus on the color palette.

Suitable water features: Cobbled creeks, concrete sinks/troughs, mill stone features, natural ponds, rock geysers, whiskey/wine barrels, and wishing wells.

Contemporary Garden

Usually characterized by attention to detail -- such as the use of a single specimen plant -- this style of garden uses a minimum amount of colors in order to produce a more dramatic effect. Form, simplicity and the clever use of light and space are fundamental to this style.

Suitable water features: Architectural granite features (aquifer columns or spheres), canals and rills (made from contemporary materials), reflection pools, stainless steel features, and water walls clad (with contemporary materials).

Cottage Garden

A favorite of many, this garden is characterized by mass planting of colorful flowers and herbs in well-designed garden beds. Although this design may look natural and free-flowing, the cottage garden is actually very carefully structured. Arguably the most enduring of all garden styles, the cottage garden often incorporates places of interest to visit such as arbors, bench seats, and gazebos.

Suitable water features: Bird baths, formal ponds, fountains, natural ponds, statuary features, and wishing wells.

Formal Garden

Relying on the use of symmetry to draw the eye to focal points such as sculptures or water features, a formal garden is typically achieved by placing plants to conform strictly to a geometric design theme. To achieve this formal look, it is essential to use hedging plants and topiaries.

Suitable water features:  Bird baths, fountain sprayers, geometric ponds, reflection pools, spilling urns/pots, and stone fountains.

Japanese Garden

The Japanese garden is the ultimate in meditation and relaxation. With its emphasis on control, simplicity and thoughtful design, the focal point of a Japanese garden is always water. In addition to using sand and stone to imitate the natural landscape, well-placed, gracefully formed plants such as bamboos, grasses and flowering shrubs provide balance which is essential to this style.

Suitable water features: Deer scarer (Shi Shi Odoshi), fish ponds, geysers, Japanese spill basin (Tsukabi), large containers with fish and water, lilies, natural ponds with rock waterfalls and cascades, and rock.

Tropical Gardens

One for the plant lovers out there, due to the range of plant species now available to gardeners everywhere, the tropical garden is gaining in popularity. They are characterized by the use of bold, colorful, and lush foliage with spectacular flowers. Densely planted tropical plants look their best in summer when we typically use our gardens, providing a cooling oasis in the warmer months.

Suitable water features: Contemporary statuary, creeks/streams, natural ponds, reflection ponds, spilling pots/urns, waterfalls, and water walls.

Tuscan Garden

Ah, Tuscany! Well, if we can’t actually live there the next best thing is to create our very own Tuscan garden. The rustic Italian garden consists of aged, natural colors intrinsic to Italian gardens. Planting -- often semi-formal to formal -- includes hedges and topiaries. A focus on Al Fresco dining and entertaining is essential to this style.

Suitable water features: Classical statuary, spilling urns, stone fountains, tiled/stone water walls, wall fountains, and wall spitters.

Xeriscape Garden

Derived from the Greek word ‘xeros’ meaning dry and from the word landscape, xeriscape is a new term for water conserving gardens. Increasingly popular in dry climates, this style garden often features both exotic and native species and is landscaped to minimize water use and also to channel water to plants that have a higher requirement. It also frequently draws from contemporary and cottage style gardening styles.

Suitable water features: Dry creek bed, granite features, mill stone features (re-circulating) natural ponds (to provide an oasis for wildlife), and rock geyser (re-circulating).