American Waterscapes builds naturalistic ponds and waterfalls in New Hampshire, where we have a super-short, cool season compared to southern regions. We also have considerably fewer sunlight hours.
Because of our short season, we spend months each year working with other contractors building production ponds where you are in and out in a remarkably brief period of time. You have to squeeze every moment so you can add a tiny bit of art to an otherwise functional pond.
Finding Inspiration
We learned the fastest way to build bulletproof ponds and repeated that process until we could build them in our sleep. We’re so grateful for this work, as it has extended our short seasons and allowed us to work in the pond industry full time alongside some industry giants. As an artist, though, it’s the kind of work that slowly drains your soul if you’re not careful.
After 20 years of building, I found myself wanting something new, something more — and something I hadn’t seen done seventeen different ways.
Thus began my journey in waterfalls to find a new color to add to my palette, a different element than I had utilized before, and to find perspective. Our stop in Iceland was far beyond my wildest imagination and definitely a place to go to gain waterfall inspiration.
Two hundred feet above your head, sun streams through a fissure in the rock, illuminating the waterfall that carves this cavern. Hundreds of thousands of alpine plants and moss cover the walls in a tapestry of verdant green. You realize that you’ve been holding your breath, taking in the beauty. You exhale, breathing in this vision and fresh air. Some part of your soul feels renewed. You can almost feel sunshine and mist running through your veins. The only things in your world for this moment is the sun and the water, the mist and flora.
Just capture all this. That’s the challenge, right? To create a space that is so all-enveloping that the smallness of our ordinary day-to-day grind is forgotten, our soul is refreshed, and we can go back to our worlds with new energy and perspective.
Lessons Learned
The takeaways from my study of Icelandic waterfalls were considerably vaster than most projects will ever be, but some elements definitely apply.
Lead with mystery. Draw people into your waterscape. Let them catch the sound and sight of a single waterfall… but obscure the rest. Create a waterfall that’s mostly hidden and has to be discovered.
Soothe with green space. Cover the structure of your rock work with flora — not necessarily the cacophony of an ordinary garden, but with a verdant tapestry where one plant blends into the next. In my personal waterscape I mimicked what I was experiencing in Iceland by using moss and lichen-covered boulders, building a moss garden among them and filling it with evergreen heather.
As the local Icelandic joke goes, “If you get lost in the forest, stand up!” Their native trees are mostly dwarf birches and willows. Fox river birches are commercially grown dwarf birch trees that mimic these beauties perfectly.
Green up those rocks. Follow the recommendations from my last article in POND Trade, “How to Build with Moss” (May/June 2024). If moss isn’t a lover of your environment, explore thyme, sedum, stonecrops and other ground covers. In Iceland, moss is protected as a national treasure.
Plant Possibilities
intertwine to become one singular verdant tapestry (right).
Add bog pockets into the edges of your rock work. Use a 12-inch-deep fabric pot filled with wet peat moss and sand. I place them in corners of the rock work that would otherwise be filled with gravel. Conversely, you can utilize a scrap of underlayment foamed securely into the rock work (preventing the peat moss and sand from escaping into the waterscape).
Plant the bog pocket with Sphagnum moss and your favorite marginal. We use native cranberries, commercially grown, native, hardy orchids, and carnivorous plants like rose pogonia, ladies tresses, purple pitcher plant (sarracenia) and pinguicula to mimic the bog pockets we discovered in Iceland.
It’s controversial in Iceland, because it’s become invasive, but lupine grows alongside and even down into the streams there. It’s definitely a stunning marginal plant. With the competition of other garden plants and marginals, it is simple to keep tame here in New Hampshire. (Perfect growing conditions and no competition have allowed it to become invasive in Iceland.) Check to see if you have a native variety (as we do in New Hampshire) to add to your waterscapes.
Effects & Accents
Don’t underestimate the power of a single drop of water. Sometimes we get so caught up in the grandeur of a waterscape that we neglect the single drop of water that mesmerizingly falls from a bit of moss with regular rhythm. Place a light under that drip for hours of evening entertainment.
Consider shadows as well as light when lighting a waterscape. The sunlight streaming in from above the waterfalls across the rocks in Iceland was breathtaking. Equally, the shadows that crept up to the edges of the light added depth to the rocks and an ethereal beauty to the falls.
They’re gimmicky and don’t last long, but there is something about mist and fog that captivates me. If you are creating a waterfall in a somewhat sheltered space, add an atomizer and the sense of mystery it creates as fog envelopes the waterfalls and then wisps away on a breeze, revealing the waterfall again. There is nothing better than a morning cup of coffee next to a misty waterfall.
See For Yourself!
Whether it’s the mystique of hidden waterfalls, the play of light and darkness, or mist-enveloping falls, the beauty of Icelandic waterfalls was veiled in the mystery of what you couldn’t see as much as the stunning beauty of what you could.
We left Iceland feeling refreshed and inspired. If you visit, make sure you trek out to pristine Lake Þingvallavatn, where two continents meet. You can snorkel or, as we did, fly fish for incredibly large ice age trout. Stay at ION adventure hotel or just stop by for an incredible meal of historically prepared local food.
Take a private tour in an off-road vehicle. The guide will be able to bring you to many stunning waterfalls, glaciers and caverns that are off the beaten path and have immense local knowledge. They’ll also create the perfect Icelandic adventure tailored just for you.
