Step out of your creative comfort zone I began my water feature career 24 years ago at a greenhouse/nursery selling pond products. From there, my love of everything water grew tremendously. I went from working at a pond supply shop to working at multiple landscape companies that specialized in water features. Finally I started my …
Recreational ponds are the latest trend in outdoor living spaces. Traditional, chemically treated swimming pools are being replaced with water the way nature intended it to be. This means water that’s naturally balanced and filtered, providing a healthier, sustainable environment for human interaction. To meet this trend, Aquascape recently launched its new recreational pond kits …
Think outside the box with pondless features Many years ago at our retail location, we had several different displays, including a koi pond, a raised water garden, an overflowing pot and a pondless waterfall. Thinking outside the box is something we always aimed to do, so we included a couple of unusual features like a …
I had the good fortune of spending a majority of my childhood in the forest. My mother was an avid gardener. We lived at the edge of a reservoir that supplied water to Baltimore City. That meant we had miles of fire trails to follow and discover. Childhood Wonders There were castle ruins that had …
By Kelly Billing and Larry Carnes Use Nature as Inspiration When Choosing Aquatic Plants Nature has long served as inspiration to the pond builder. Wind and rain-weathered rock formations, jutted outcroppings and eroded stone from centuries of varying seasonal water flows are all naturally occurring structures that are often studied and near replicated to bring …
When most people think of droughts, they don’t picture the green deciduous forests of the Northeast. Growing up in Massachusetts, I certainly didn’t. It wasn’t until I visited relatives in New Mexico as a kid that I got to experience the issue up close. At the time, my family there lived in an off-grid house …
Homeowners Personalize Their Spaces in the Planting Phase Plants, both terrestrial and aquatic, are a huge part of naturalizing a newly constructed water feature. Not only do plants help soften up the hardscape, but they also help tie everything together. After the chaos of the construction phase has come to an end, and the machine …
The International Water Gardening Society (IWGS) New Waterlily Competition enjoyed a special year in 2022. It marked the 25th anniversary of the first competition, which was held in 1997 at Denver Botanic Gardens. We had the unique opportunity to celebrate this momentous occasion during this year’s IWGS symposium held at the competition’s current host site, …
It’s so fun to have life experiences! For me, flying down to Alabama to visit Laura Bancroft of Ten Mile Creek Nursery was one of them. Earlier in 2022, Laura invited me to come out during what I thought was the harvest of lotus — but this was on a whole other level! Laura went …
Contractor outfits front yard with large-rock pondscape Building a water feature at your own home can be a bit overwhelming. You really want to incorporate all your favorite things from all the ponds you’ve ever built into one crazy piece of artwork; however, we wanted our pond to be simple and somewhat affordable. To contrast …