Ponds are our Passion, and I hope that they will soon be yours. We truly enjoy building custom ponds for our clients. They challenge us and let us stretch our creativity in ways that no other landscape project can. Each pond is unique from the start. There are no two ponds that are alike, just like there are no two people who are alike. Each pond that we build is crafted to fit our customer’s needs and their yards.
We pride ourselves on the quality of our work and the simplicity and ease of maintenance of our ponds. We are continually working to make our ponds the easiest ponds to maintain. We know that you would rather be enjoying your pond than working on it, and our custom pond systems will give you an all natural eco-system pond that very easy to care for.
We personally choose the materials for your pond and each pond has a unique waterfall, a unique shape and each one is placed uniquely in your yard. We can customize a lighting and planting package for in and out of the water to best suit your pond. You’ll never find two ponds that are the same just like you’ll never find two homeowners, yards or families that are exactly alike.
We talk a lot about ponds, but it’s not just ponds anymore. If you are considering bringing a bit of naturally beautiful water into your yard, you have many choices. Sometimes the terminology and choices can be a bit confusing. Check out our descriptions below for a bit of clarification.
Many Water Feature Choices
Eco-System Ponds
The eco-system pond is our bread and butter. This is our absolute favorite pond to build and maintain and what we do the most of. These ponds are fully lined with rubber and rock and will have a wetland filter, waterfall, wet well intake and plants. The correct balance of water circulation, wetland filtration, bacteria, fish and plants is what makes these ponds balance out naturally. When done correctly, they are very low maintenance and beautiful. We call them eco-system ponds because they are a balanced ecosystem. They can also be referred to as water gardens. These ponds are usually a minimum of 12′ x 12′ x 3′ deep, but they can be as large as you’d like.
Box Ponds
What we call a box pond is simply the older version of the eco-system ponds that we install now. We call them box ponds because they are built using a skimmer box and a waterfall box. These ponds can still be natural and they can certainly still have a balanced eco-system if you have enough plants in them. The downside to these ponds is that the boxes, filters, nets, etc. make these ponds harder to maintain and harder to balance. Many people still install these ponds and they can work very well if set up and maintained properly. These may also be be referred to as water gardens.
Homeowner Ponds
When the pump is simply placed on the bottom of the pond and a small hose runs up to the edge of the pond to recirculate water down a few rocks or there is a small sprinkler fountain, we call this a homeowner pond. I guess that we named them this because this is the most common type of pond that we come across where the homeowner bought a piece of rubber or a pre-formed plastic pond and created their own small water feature. These ponds typically have difficulty balancing due to the lack of plants, circulation and filtration. They are also high maintenance because you need to reach into the pond and clean debris out of the pump fairly often. They are probably one of the easiest ways to get a tiny pond in your back yard.
Pondless Waterfalls or Streams
The pondless water feature is just as it sounds, it can be any type of waterfall or stream, large or small, with no pond. The water still gets pumped to the top of the waterfall, there is just no pond at the bottom. Instead of a pond, the water and the pump reside in a basin that is filled with rock and gravel. The average basin is shallow, but we create them using our wet well intake system to minimize the maintenance and maximize your enjoyment. The downside to a pondless is no pond, so no fish and no water lilies. The upside is no pond, so no worries about algae and no need to circulate the feature to maintain water quality. If you get some algae growth on the rocks, you can just shut it down and let it dry out. These water feature are great for someone who wants the sights and sounds of a waterfall but also wants to just shut it down and go out of town for a few weeks. There is no winter prep and very little maintenance.
Fountains
Fountains come in every size imaginable, from the very large Vegas style fountains that can fill a back or front yard to the very small bubbling boulders that could gently fill your small patio area with the sights and sounds of running water. These are often installed using a small preformed basin if they are small, but can also be installed using our wet well intake system for larger more dramatic custom fountains. Small fountains are probably the cheapest way to have a professionally installed, low maintenance water feature in your yard.
Retention Ponds
Retention ponds are found in most newer subdivisions and commercial areas. They are mostly functional ponds that developers use to control water runoff and manage stormwater events. They typically have slowly sloping sides and are often surrounded by grass. Most hold water all year around. Retention ponds are often a maintenance challenge because no one plans ahead for circulation or filtration, so they are unbalanced and tend to grow algae. There are many ways to naturally treat a retention pond and create balance. I would always encourage someone managing a retention pond to avoid chemical treatments as they lead to unbalance and more algae and pond muck.
Golf Course Ponds
Golf courses build ponds to create obstacles to make our golf more challenging and also to use for irrigation. They come in all shapes and sizes, are typically unlined and often have little to no circulation and are often unbalanced. The fact that golf courses use a lot of fertilizer on the course means that these pond get a heavy dose of fertilizer when it rains, so they often have heavy algae growth. Once again, most are maintained with chemical applications, but there are many natural solutions to care for your golf course pond.
Natural Ponds
Many properties have naturally occurring ponds or ponds that were created many years prior and have naturalized. The properties that are blessed with good water flow or springs can often have an easy to maintain, completely naturally balanced pond. Others that catch a lot of area run off can have a challenge to maintain them. Many natural ponds are filling in with plants and debris, so if they have not been maintained for years, they may need some dredging to clean them out.
Whether it’s help with a small fountain or with a massive natural pond, we can help you with your construction, renovation or maintenance.