A Natural Pond Turns into a Tropical Getaway

Text and photos by Backyard Getaway

We met this customer through one of our yearly pond tours. They live in a rural area on a 10-acre property with a natural earth pond in the front yard. They were looking for ideas to landscape around the 1-acre pond and to add a waterfall for movement. In honor of their Hawaiian honeymoon, the couple wanted to add that tropical look to their yard for their 10th anniversary.

before

after Click here for slideshow.

The project started as a waterfall installation on a natural pond. It grew to include a pondless water feature with spitting herons, a gray granite rock retaining wall inside the pond, landscaping with tropical palms and crimson rock ground cover, a fieldstone pathway, a Trex Transcend dock/deck, landscape irrigation, landscape lighting, fiber optic lighting, green dock lights and two lake fountains. The owners have dogs, turtles, tortoise, birds and iguanas that play around the pond, so they wanted to maintain the pond naturally with aeration, plants and fountains.

The pond sits directly in front of the house with a small dock on the west side of the pond and a gazebo on the east. The waterfall was created as a decorative element and is visible from the front porch as well as from the driveway.

To the right of the waterfall we created a smaller pondless water feature with a waterfall and a stream that empties into a basin. The basin includes a fountain in the center to mirror the two floating fountains we installed in the pond. The smaller waterfall faces the gazebo area. Several spitting brass herons accent the pondless feature, and a small island near the pond edge includes a trio of spitting herons.

No matter where visitors sit in the yard, they can see and hear moving water. To meet the owners’ concern about energy efficiency, we installed two smaller 110-volt external pumps. This gives them the option to run both or turn one off for a softer flow.

Because the water level fluctuates in natural ponds, we installed the intake screens about 30 feet from the pond edge. While the water was low, the owners asked us to add gray granite rock around the pond’s inside perimeter to act as a retaining wall and to give the pond a more finished look when the water levels dropped.

Crimson gravel, black lava boulders, palm trees, native grasses and Frangipani (plumeria) give the landscape a tropical feel. A dock and deck using Trex Transcend tropical hardwood finish was added to the gazebo along with a flagstone pathway from the new dock to the water feature’s edge and to a "sitting" rock placed near the pond edge.

We finished the project with landscape lighting, green dock lights and fiber optic lighting on the waterfall.

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A Natural Pond Turns into a Tropical Getaway

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