Moving Water in a Backyard: Ponds, Waterfalls and Fountains

Every other thing in a backyard is looked at. Moving water is heard first, usually before anyone has turned their head, and that is most of its appeal. It covers road noise, it pulls people toward one end of a yard, and it gives an outdoor space something to do in the middle of a quiet afternoon. The question is almost never whether a family wants it. The question is which kind, because there are three, and the difference between them comes down to what happens to the water.

Three shapes, and the water tells them apart

A pond holds its water in the open, which is what lets it carry fish and plants. A waterfall without a pond keeps its water out of sight, in a reservoir buried under the stone, and pumps it back up to run again. A fountain does the same trick inside a single object, an urn or a bowl or a column, on a scale that suits a courtyard or an entry. Aquascape, whose systems J&E builds with, makes all three, and their own descriptions of how each works are plain enough to plan against.

A waterfall with no pond suits the most yards

This is the one most families end up wanting once they hear it described. Aquascape calls it a recirculating waterfall or stream with no pond present: the water sits in a large reservoir in the ground, a pump lifts it up to the spillway, and it runs back down into the reservoir to start again. Nothing stands open, which is why Aquascape points to it for households with young children or with pets that cannot resist water. It scales in both directions, from something closer to a babbling brook to a longer, louder drop, and a pond can be added to it later if the family decides it wants fish after all.

A koi pond is a garden that happens to hold water

The open pond is the bigger commitment and the bigger reward, and it is a landscape feature rather than an accessory. At Pond View Estate in North Reading, on a two acre property, Copper Beech Designs drew the yard and J&E built it around a koi pond measuring twenty five feet by sixteen, three feet deep. Reclaimed granite steps appear to float across the water. A spillway is set into a stone seating wall. A thousand square feet of travertine terrace wraps the whole thing, so the pond is what the dining table looks at. That is what a pond does when it is planned into the yard from the start instead of added at the end.

A fountain goes where a pond will not

Not every property has room for open water, and plenty of the best water features are small. At Belmont Backyard, drawn by Elizabeth Gourley Design and built by J&E, a stacked stone urn stands on polished black stone and adds the sound of moving water to a yard that already had a paver patio, decks and lit planting beds. Aquascape builds the same idea as kits: urns, spilling bowls, basalt columns and fountain rocks, each running on a pump and a reservoir set below. A fountain fits a front entry, a courtyard, a corner of a terrace, or the one spot in a yard everybody walks past.

Water on a pool is a pool decision, not a yard decision

The features that live on a pool are a separate conversation. Waterfalls, fountains, laminar jets, bubblers and an infinity edge all move water at the pool itself, and they get settled while the pool is still being worked out rather than afterward. A pond or a fountain elsewhere in the yard answers to the garden. A sheet of water spilling into a pool answers to the pool. Worth keeping the two questions apart when you are making a list.

What moving water asks of you in return

Less than most people expect, and more than nothing. A recirculating feature is a system: a pump, a reservoir, and water that needs somewhere to go. Aquascape describes these systems as low upkeep, and there is a practical piece of advice on its own site worth repeating, which is to put a waterfall where the sound carries, near a window if you want the house to get it too. Place it for the ear as much as for the eye. A feature nobody can hear from where they actually sit is the one mistake that cannot be fixed with a pump.

Moving water is worth saying out loud early, because it changes where everything else goes. J&E builds water features into pools and into yards across Woburn and Greater Boston. The number is 781-608-4425.