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You’re out for your morning coffee and what do you hear? The neighbor's leaf blower. Traffic humming down Colorado Boulevard. Your air conditioner kicking on. Not exactly the quiet escape you’d imagined when you tried to leave here. The thing is, though: A strategically placed water feature is not only beautiful; it also cancels out that aural graffiti and gives you something better to listen to.
We have been constructing ponds and fountains around Pasadena long enough to know what lasts in this climate (and won’t turn into a maintenance headache). While our Mediterranean climate is pretty forgiving, you still have to take into consideration the sun exposure, how much water you are willing to use and whether your yard can accommodate something of a full trout pond or just needs a compact alternative.
Establishing It Someplace You're Likely to See The Ring
Before you commit to hauling stone or digging holes, take your coffee with you on a walk around the yard. Stand at your back door. Take breakfast where you always do. Look through your kitchen window. After all, otherwise what’s the point of shelling out for a water feature if you never see it? (Don’t hide your pretty fountain behind the shed where it’ll only be seen by you when you’re toting out trash cans.)
For tiny Pasadena backyards, a pondless waterfall or raised stone basin are way more feasible than a sprawling koi pond. You get the sound and physicality, but it all fits into a 4-by-6-foot space. We have installed these off patios in spots where they are close enough to hear but not so loud that the splashing gets annoying and you can't talk to someone.
And don't skip the pathway. You want this to be a really beautiful little walk back from your patio over to your water feature. It gets you out into the yard, moving around, rather than just sitting in one place.
Wet and Dry Layer Your Plants
Here’s what most people get wrong: They want that lush, tropical look around the pond but don’t want to water their entire yard like it’s the Amazon. You don't have to choose. The trick is stacking your plantings — the water-sucking plants clamped right up against the edge of the pond, and let’s face it; just about everything else stands as a drought-tolerant second fiddle to create depth everywhere else.
Bold right at the water. Japanese iris and canna lilies provide you with height and color. Creeping jenny or dwarf papyrus softens that hard line between water and rock so it doesn’t look like you just laid a liner in the ground and left. Lilies float near the surface and bloom without much of a commotion.
A few feet farther back — especially near patios and paths, where drainage is quicker — switch to lavender or roses or ornamental grasses. They tolerate Pasadena’s dry summers with nary a grimace and their texture is good against all the soft, water loving plants. Native plants such as yarrow or hummingbird sage are absolute workhorses. Once they take, they almost dis you, and the hummingbirds really do hang out for it.
But this arrangement is about more than appearance. It’s a backyard that does not require you to be out there every other day with a hose.
Set Up Sound and Lighting Correctly
If your fountain is too loud, it’s white noise you tune out — or worse still, it just annoys you. We’re going for a trickle, something that you can hear if you are standing near it but that doesn’t drown your whole yard. That is the sweet spot where it washes away background noise without turning into noise itself.
It’s lighting that is the first thing people scrimp on, and it’s a shame because lighting makes such a difference.” Low-voltage LEDs hidden beneath a waterfall spillway, or lining your pond’s edge, provide after-dark mood and ambience without making it seem like you’re illuminating a parking lot. Just make sure the intensity of your light matches that water flow—if one’s dramatic and not the other, it will feel off.
Design It Like It's Supposed to Be There
Consider your backyard as if it were a set of outdoor rooms. One's for eating and sitting. Another for strolling and gazing at plants. The water element could be the knot that ties them. When everything ties together — the same stone on the patio and pond edging, paths that go somewhere as opposed to nowhere, plantings that slide easily from wet zones into dry ones — it feels thoughtful rather than accidental.
We have visited yards where someone plopped in a fountain as an afterthought, and there it sits like a lawn ornament. And we have also seen ones that goes from the back of the house out to transform their garden beds into a water feature, and then it just magically feels like an extension of their home. The distinction is the organization of it as one project, not as a jumble of indie ideas haphazardly scattered around.
Your yard should work for you — not just look good in photographs, but be a place where you actually want to spend time. If walking out into your garden to look at water gets you outside more, that’s what it’s supposed to do.
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