2026, gardening, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Water Feature

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The previous owners of our home spent a lot of money on landscaping in the backyard. I have never had such a fancy backyard. We added the fence. There is a fire pit:

We also have lots of brick paved areas with rock-filled beds for plants:

Those are some of the largest hostas I have ever seen. We never had hostas before. The rest of the plants are lower maintenance shrubs, Stella d’oro lillies, and succulents. They didn’t even have rhubarb!

I think they went a little over the top with the water feature, however. It is a bubbling brook powered by an electric pump submerged in a deep vat at the bottom of the brook. It is plugged into an electric outlet by the fence. The pump has to be removed every fall so it won’t freeze up over the winter. It is not easy to remove or reinstall.

The birds love the brook. It has to be refilled every other day or so or the pump starts to make groaning noises. I plan to turn over the stones with the words carved in them, as I think those are a silly affectation and they annoy me.

The dogs love to plunge in the brook at the top and slide down to the bottom. I would never put such a thing in a yard, and I absolutely hate all the rocks in the flower beds as they make weeding and replanting a lot more work than they need to be. I plan to put in roses and hydrangeas and spring bulbs next year, but we need to clear a lot of rocks from every side of the house before that happens.

If you had to have a water feature in your yard, what kind would you get? What words would you have carved in flat stones in your yard?

27 thoughts on “Water Feature”

  1. I’ve noticed neighbors’ water features that are basically “stone looking” plastic and vertical. One has something that looks vaguely “South Pacific” and the other “Ionian”. They seem to use not very much water at all.
    As for the stones… just to stir things up, I’d probably do something like “Rest” and “Peace”, or “Beloved” and “Grandmother”.

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  2. I admit, I laughed hard when I saw your comment on flipping over the stones with words carved into them. I found one in my yard and will get a picture when it gets a bit brighter out there so you can see why.

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  4. I’ve always thought it would be kind of fun to have a water feature. I saw a 3 foot high crane fountain at Ren Fest many years ago that I thought was very pretty; the water tumbled down from the top onto lily pads I guess. But between the “having to deal with it” and the cost, I’ve never followed through.

    No rocks with words on them for me, please.

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  5. And certainly no rocks in the garden. I don’t know anyone who has put rocks in around their bushes and flowers who has been happy with it in the end.

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  7. I have seen some very nice, simple fountains – basically a bowl or crock with a bubbler and some rocks… or something like these: https://completegardening.com/15-beautiful-backyard-water-features-anyone-can-make-without-hiring-a-pro/
    (Now it will be interesting to see what online kind of ads I get today.)

    Someone gave me some small stones once with the words “Live, Love, Laugh”, and I didn’t mind those for a while, but they didn’t make the cut when we moved here… I love “Turn me over” above…

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  9. I’d go with a simple birdbath for the local flyers to sip from or wash up. I’d probably get one with a motor/filter/strainer/whatever so the water doesn’t get stagnant and attract mosquitoes.

    Sandra put quite a few “things” in our garden, but only one rock has any writing on it and I’m too lazy to go outside to find out what it says and report back. It’s far enough from the windows that you can’t read it from the house.

    I wouldn’t put engraved flat stones in my backyard, but if I were forced to do it, I’d have the words be “Don’t Tread on Me.”

    Chris in Owatonna

    **BSP** Hey folks, if you’re interested in reading a five-author medical thriller and you’ll be in the northern Twin Cities tomorrow, stop by the White Bear Lake middle school (3551 McKnight Rd N) to celebrate Manitou Days in the town. Specifically the Artisan and Vendor Fair from 10 am to 3 pm. Dozens of vendors and artists of all sorts will be selling their wares.

    About my co-authored book. The Kill Code Collective is a medical thriller written by me and my colleagues in Midwest Mystery Works. We all belong to the Twin Cities chapter of Sisters in Crime–where we met– and started this project almost three years ago now. It’s a great way to check out the writing style and characters of all five of us. We each used a signature character from our previous books, so my protagonist, Matt Lanier, is my contribution to the story. It’s fast-paced, well-written (not bragging. Review have been excellent!) and features one of the most interesting cast of characters you’ll encounter in a thriller. I hope to see you tomorrow. If not, learn more about the book and upcoming appearances by me and/or my MMW colleagues at my website, chrisnorbury.com. **END BSP**

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    1. Who are the other authors?

      You are not making a great case for being involved with you! Will I come out of the Art Fair alive? You may have thought about these murder techniques waaaay to much for my comfort. 😉😉

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    2. I often wonder what the process is like to co-author a book. I can imagine 5 authors could get sticky. I suppose you must like and respect each other to make that work!

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  10. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I am not partial to having a water feature in my yard. We do have a bird bath, which I enjoy. It attracts bluebirds in the neighborhood! I love watching them. However, keeping ahead of the algae/moss-like muck in that one simple bird bath is more than I can do. Washington DC is creating an excellent example about the difficulties involved in maintaining water features. (Yes, that is snark you read. I could go on and on, so I am cutting off my comments).

    A flat stone would have to read “Ouch! Get off me.”

    Meanwhile, no one mention to Chris the perils of Blue Green Algae. And then there are e-coli infestations….

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  11. Rock mottoes:

    “Everyone takes me for granite”
    “Wake me when it’s over”
    “Everybody must get stoned”
    “I miss my escarpment”
    “I’m with her (arrow points to another rock) Other rock: “He wishes”

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    2. “Good at keeping secrets (my liths are sealed)”
      “What time is the next glacier due?”
      “Sedimentary, my dear Watson”
      “Time is on my side”
      “No nos moverons”
      “You call this a garden?”

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  13. We have a few water features. They’re always green and gross.
    One was a puddle I kept for the chickens and ducks. I’d set the hose up to spray water into it and the ducks liked that, but it was in a bad location and eventually we filled it in.

    Another is the water tank. I dump it out and scrub and refill about every two weeks. It looks like the reflecting pool in about a week. Except it’s black, not flag blue.

    And then theres the “pond” where the tile drains. That has a supply of fresh water coming in, but it’s also gross and I could never keep the outlet formed properly and it would wash out and now it’s just a wet spot in the swamp. 😉

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  14. Hmmm… I left a comment a couple hours ago and it seems to have vanished.

    I wonder if you’re going to have your usual large vegetable garden, Renee? Is there room somewhere else in the yard?

    I kind of like having large rocks as landscape features. I like a natural, woodsy look. What I actually have is an aging concrete patio surrounded by river run rocks (landscape size) that contains agates, granite, gneiss, chert, quartz, and others. It’s sunny and hot in the afternoon. My garden boxes are doing great with zucchini, tomatoes, eggplants, and flowers. My cedar planters have Swiss chard, carrots, peppers, two kinds of parsley, basil, chives, nasturtiums, and tomatoes. I have flowers and ornamental grasses in pots. I also have a hydrangea, for which I dug through the rocks and the black plastic underneath, and then dug a hole about 18” deep. It should have been a little deeper, but I put the hydrangea in and watered it well, and it seems to be doing well.

    I’m a purist about rocks. I don’t like to carve on them, although I have painted some rocks with smiles and peace signs and butterflies and flowers and “Be Kind” and stuff like that. Then I left them in my old neighborhood for others to find. I don’t want any engraved sayings on them, though. They’re old souls with a deeper message.

    I have a ceramic fountain thing that I bought at the Red Wing Art Fair several years ago. It’s like a flattened amphora, with the top scooped out to form a basin. It’s fairly heavy. It has a small electric pump inside. There are numerous ceramic disks that lie inside the basin over the hole that drains the water so it can recirculate. On one side there is a smaller bowl with a ceramic “rock” in it where the water comes out. I enjoy it when I can have it outside and I can hear the water running – about 4 or 5 months per year. I have to store it all winter. I suppose I could leave it running inside, but I don’t want to deal with it.

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    1. We have three deep, large, raised beds (6ft long and 3 feet deep) in the back yard. We decided last summer that a big garden was too much for our aging bodies. I plan to get two more raised beds next year.

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