Garden Waterfall Design By Jeff Halper At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Garden waterfall design continues to gain increasing popularity all over the Houston Area. Many of our citizens have become a bit bored with traditional swimming pool and garden designs. The garden waterfall represents an instantly recognizable, beloved natural formation that adds an aesthetic to any back yard. Waterfalls are essential elements in Japanese Garden design, natural swimming pool design, pond design, and certain types of custom fountains.

The visible features of garden waterfall design are the same as those we find in Nature. We see boulders strewn in high places at the top of the falls, and we find rocks scattered along the both banks of the stream. Some of these boulders are actually planters in disguise, containing a variety of grasses and flowering plants to make them appear like wild vegetation growing around rock formations along a river bank.

The hidden elements of garden waterfall design are a bit different, on the other hand. In Nature, rivers and stream form deep channels by cutting through rock and dirt over long periods of time. When these channels reach the edge of a cliff or steep slope, the water then cascades downward to a lower elevation. In landscaping design, however, it simply not cost effective to build a garden waterfall using a solid rock basin. Concrete is am much better substance to use (just like it is in swimming pool design) because it retains water and is tough enough to resist the shifting nature of the Houston soil. After the concrete is poured and later dries, we cover it with rocks to make the stream channel appear natural.

Slope is the hardest thing to recreate in garden waterfall design. We have to recreate a graded descent for the water proportional to the length of the channel and the size and depth of the pool into which it falls. Waterfalls almost always occur in mountainous areas and cliffs on tropical islands. To design a duplicate of such slope on the flat Houston terrain is no small challenge, but it can be done. We typically have to add dirt in places and dig out portions of the yard in others. This has to be done very systematically under the supervision of a landscaping plan in order to ensure that the aesthetic of the surrounding yard is preserved.

Sometimes we can work with existing terrain in properties that lie near one of the many Houston bayous. These properties tend to have a natural slope in the back yard that can provide the necessary grade to dig a channel and build a natural swimming pool or garden waterfall that drains into a backyard pond. In fact, many times people prefer to have garden waterfalls placed in the very rear of the property because it provides the ideal location for a private, family gathering seating area.

This is one of our more costly services due to the fact that we must balance the grade of slope with the surrounding yard and also make it proportional to the waterfall and garden itself. In spite of its luxury price point, it is strongly recommended that only clients willing to invest top dollar in this service consider it simply because any deviation from standard scale or materials to cut costs will almost certainly result in disappointing results.

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