Considering a fountain, waterfall and water features for garden

This is a 250 word (approx) summary of a chapter from my water gardens book pictured to the left.

For a complete list of summaries see the right hand column

Concepts:

waterfall, pond, stream, water, pump, flow, appearance, metre, fibreglass, rock, feature, lip, litres, pleasing, character.

Summary:

- ... noisy rather than soothing, splashy rather than comforting.

- It also helps and creates a far more pleasing appearance to install a waterfall that has "steps" in it.

- This creates a more natural appearance and seems to slow the water down.

- It also allows you to build character into the flow using pebbles as obstructions for example.

- It is also often difficult to prevent leaks (and find them later).

- So unless you are a real DIY enthusiast with some extra skill go and buy a preformed natural looking rock waterfall made from fiberglass.

- Knowing the height of the waterfall inlet above the water level in the pond is important in order to be able to specify the correct pump.

- A waterfall with a wide lip will need more water than one with a narrow lip to create a good effect.

- In my experience the fibreglass rocklike waterfalls are perfect for most garden ponds and are well designed to handle the appropriate water flow for the size of the waterfall itself.

- Some companies produce modular streams that when connected together provide very long streams which can add another dimension to a garden water feature.

- Please note and believe me when I say very few garden ponds benefit from a waterfall as high as 1 metre and in my opinion this is probably too high unless a cascade effect rather than a fall effect is required.

- As an alternative to a true waterfall consider a stream flowing into the pond and which falls from a height of say 10 or 15 cm.