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Planning Your Garden

Water In The Garden

THERE is something so delightful in the living, moving presence of water in the landscape that gardeners may be excused their desire to introduce it into their flower ground. Yet in a garden of limited size it should be recognized that the effect which appeals to us amidst natural surroundings is practically unrealizable. At the same time the conditions may be such that water can be introduced without appearing to be too artificial a feature. This applies particularly to gardens bounded by a natural stream or through which such a stream passes.

When the water has to be derived from the domestic supply and contained in artificial ponds it is a different matter. But even then it may be possible to avoid offence provided the gardener contents himself with simple arrangements. Any sense of artificiality that may arise can be counteracted by the inherent interest in luxuriant water growth and the delightful blooms we get from such purely-aquatic plants as water-lilies and lotus.

It may, however, be stated at the outset that the making of a water garden is a simple matter compared with its efficient maintenance. No gardener should lightly embark upon the task unless he is prepared to give unremitting attention to his water plants and to their artificial homes. This implies frequent changing of water and cleansing of ponds.

In town and suburban gardens organic matter, dead leaves, and other undesirable things are wafted by the wind or fall upon the water surface, where they remain to decay and defile the water.

When a running stream is available, these drawbacks operate less prejudicially, though they are not altogether absent.

I shall first consider the case of a garden bounded by a stream at its far end. We may assume that the water is pure enough for our purpose. The probability is that the gardener would have no rights over the water, but also that no objection would exist to his diverting some of it through his garden. In such an event he might excavate a backwater, say with an extension in the form of a bay, as shown in the illustration .