Outdoor Water Features and Garden Fountains make a wonderful addition to your Backyard Area.

If you spend any time at all in your backyard, how could you say no to an outdoor water feature or a garden fountain?

What’s the difference between an outdoor water feature and a garden fountain?

Simply put, a water feature is something that remains in the same place all the time. It could be a, pool, a pond or a water fountain that is hard wired into place. In other words, it will not be moved any time soon. Once in place, it will be there all year round. Now I’m not talking about pools here, rather I’d like to focus on ponds and fountains.

What about Garden Fountains?

A garden fountain on the other hand, may be hard wired into place, but more often than not, it is a movable water feature. It will be shut down in the winter months, be cleaned, drained and put away or covered, to protect it from the cold winter weather. It will only come out again in springtime, when all the snow and cold has disappeared.  Garden fountains take up much less space than a pond, and the maintenance is much less than a pond. A Garden fountain needs to be kept full of water and cleaned out maybe every two weeks or so.  Birds and butterflies, bees and other little creatures will come to the garden fountain for a bath or a drink.  Most garden fountains are above the ground level, or they have a reservoir just below the feature,  so they are easy to clean and keep neat.  A pond on the other hand will require more upkeep.

What About Ponds?

I have both of these types of water features in my yard. One is a pond that holds approximately 2,500 gallons of water. It was built for me by my husband over 10 years ago. We enjoy this water feature immensely. It is home to our 10 Koi and 2 Goldfish. My husband and I enjoy this water feature during the day, but also at night. The sounds of water falling over the rocks is very soothing and makes it very easy to sleep at night. We can hear the sounds of the water from our bedroom window and even look out over the pond in the wee hours of the morn.

Just to make it easier for you,  Amazon has pond kits. Everything you need is in the first three choices.  Pond liners, mechanical and electrical needs as well as a pump.  The fourth choice, the rigid pond liner will require a pump and or fountain head to aerate the water.

All of these choices are wonderful but I will not lie, there is a learning curve with keeping a pond and keeping it healthy. If you think you can fill it with water and let it go, you are in for a surprise or two. Having said that, I know our pond is worth all of the learning we had to do and we would do it again in a heart beat. We started out with a rigid pond liner that I inherited from my father. He did not learn what he needed to learn in order to keep the water clean and frustrated he removed his pond and gave it to me.  We enjoyed this pond for months, but it was not big enough for our wants.  So we designed our own.
A good suggestion is to do some reading before you start. I would suggest this book, because I trust the information from Rodale publishers.

Once you are comfortable with this knowledge, then it is time to start digging.

Take your time and follow the instructions closely.  Do Not rush the process, if you do it wrong, it is much harder to undo it and redo it again.  In less than a week, you will be sitting back listening to the soothing sounds of water flowing.  It will help to drown out the city noises and you will relax in your own little bit of heaven on earth.