Home & Garden

If you’re looking to add an elegant, serene touch to your home landscape, a water garden could be the answer.

That’s how Mike and Tammy Glass turned their average Clarksville backyard into a little piece of paradise.

An arched pagoda-style entranceway with Japanese lanterns greets visitors, and a gravel path leads through a small bamboo thicket to softly gurgling waterfalls, a wooden footbridge and a koi-filled pond flanked by Buddha statues and a concrete bench.

“You just forget everything when you go back there,” says Glass, a master gardener and founder of the Montgomery County Water Garden Society. “It’s a great way to relax.”

As more homeowners turn their yards into extensions of their living space, these lush, plant- and fish-filled retreats are catching on in a big way.

In Montgomery County, the water garden society has grown to include more than 75 families who get together once a month to share dinner, water-garden tips, ideas, live fish and plants.

Each summer, the society puts on a self-guided water-garden tour, allowing folks to see new construction techniques and designs.

An annual potluck banquet in February includes awards and lots more water-garden talk. This year’s tour is set for Aug. 25.

Several similar pond and koi societies have bubbled up throughout the state in recent years, offering get-togethers, water-garden tours, plant swaps, seminars and awards.

Earl Parrish heads up the Montgomery County society, and, like most water gardeners, he’s a do-it-yourselfer. After doing some research a few years ago, he grabbed a sledgehammer, broke up the front sidewalk and started digging.

Parrish lined the pond himself, installed the pump and other equipment, and replaced the sidewalk with hand-painted stepping-stones.

He later used molds to make concrete stones shaped like fish – adding a personal touch to the koi-filled, softly burbling water garden with its cascade of Boston ferns, dwarf cattails, water lilies, lotus plants and fragrant plumeria.

“We sit here in the evenings when it’s not too hot,” Sharon Parrish says. “You hear the water and watch the fish. It’s very relaxing.”

Some people install water gardens to beautify their homes; others like the colorful fish, the plants or the sound of water. But a search for serenity seems to be the common denominator.

“Everybody is stressed out these days,” Glass says. “They’re looking for something relaxing and enjoyable. I think that’s the biggest reason people get into it – so they can unwind.”

A decade ago, water gardens were anything but relaxing. What started as a nice idea often became a murky, high-maintenance nightmare of algae and debris-clogged pumps.

But new products and technology improvements on pumps, fountains and filters have made water gardens more affordable, sophisticated and easier than ever to maintain.

They’re not maintenance-free, however.

Ponds that are properly installed, with the right products, can achieve a kind of ecological balance that makes the process easier, says Randall Tate, owner of The Water Garden store in Chattanooga.

Half an hour of work a couple times a month in the summer, plus some maintenance in the fall and spring, should be enough.

“It tends to be less work than other types of gardens,” Tate says. “If you do it right, you’re going to get a lot of enjoyment out of it.”

A small, basic water garden could cost a do-it-yourselfer around $300 these days, he says, and the price goes up from there.

“You never say a water garden is finished,” says Earl Parrish, who’s thinking of adding another pond behind his house. “You always see something you want to add. It’s a work in progress.”

Ready To Get Wet?

If you’re thinking about adding a water garden to your own landscape, getting some advice is always recommended. Several water garden and koi societies are active throughout the state, including:

• Nashville Pond Society, 615-832-7333 or visit nashvillepond.org.
• Montgomery County Water Garden Society, 931-358-2914 or visit mcwgs.org.
• West Tennessee Pond and Koi Club in Jackson, 731-424-2206 visit carterslandscape.com.
• Koi Club of Middle Tennessee, kcmt.net.
• Great Smoky Mountains Koi Club and Pond Society, 865-692-3882 or visit gsmkc.org.

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Magazine:
Tennessee Home & Farm, Fall 2010 Edition Edition

Headline:
Searching for Serenity

Summary:
Water gardens turn a ho-hum yard into a relaxing retreat.

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