Relaxing sounds, inviting wildlife, beautification, or cooling the immediate environment are just a few benefits one can enjoy with a pond-less water feature.  

If traffic noise, neighborhood dogs, or even too much silence take away from enjoying your outdoor space, a fantastic solution could be a low maintenance water feature.  From powerful waterfalls to bubbling boulders, pond-less water features are becoming more and more popular additions to our outdoor spaces.  If you enjoy sitting outside, but don’t want to hear some of the less relaxing noises that can sometimes accompany the experience, the sound of water can come to your rescue! 

 Water features are always best when custom designed to perfectly fit the needs of the people (and other creatures) it serves.  Masking highway noise, for instance, can be done by setting the height of the falls, adjusting the flow of the pump, and careful placement of splashing stones.  You can completely mask louder sounds, without feeling like the feature itself is overbearing.  EX: A 10 foot waterfall 4 feet away from the dining table might be a bit much, but a 6 foot set of falls, sited between the dining space and the source of offending noise(s) can completely change your outdoor vibe.

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 Sounds affect our mental state and ability to relax much more than most people realize.  Even silence can become deafening, or at least depriving, when it is time to wind down from a stressful day.  Instead of listening to one’s mind replay the day’s encounters, we invite you to hear what relaxes you most.  Listening to a softly gurgling creek, a rushing waterfall or even just a trickle from a natural stone water feature can bring calm and serenity in a way that few other sounds can.

Birds, butterflies and a huge variety of 4 legged creatures are all drawn to water.  No matter what you want to see more of while you’re outside relaxing, a water feature is the perfect way to draw them in.  Birds LOVE the moving water. If there is a safe landing place for them near the space where the water is pushed out, you will have hours of entertainment watching them play and splash in that rush of water that they adore.  Butterflies prefer a calmer spot of (very shallow) still water to drink and bathe.  It isn’t as difficult as you may think to create a few perfect butterfly baths, even within a very fast moving water feature.  Rock placement and observing/adjusting the splash can provide tiny little ponds of freshwater that will invite these floating flowers to visit your space often.  Most gardeners have a love/hate relationship with deer, raccoons, and even squirrels.  If you have a property that allows for these creatures to visit, and you want them to come in closer-just add water.

As much as the sound affects you, the visual beauty of a perfectly built, naturally integrated water feature is also at the top of the list for improving your outdoor mood.  Watching the beautifully colored creatures that will be drawn into your space  are indeed a bonus, but watching the water splash, reflect light and sparkle is a work of art by itself.  The moving water is a very helpful tool in meditation, or just to pull you into a better mental state of relaxation.  In addition to the visual and audible benefits, water features also have a cooling effect.  Mixing with warm air, causing slight evaporation, a running water feature can cool you down while it is also working hard to relax you and provide you with a sense of peace. 

Maintaining a water feature is often the reason people shy away from installing them-you want it to relax you, not to add to your list of chores right?  That is the main reason the trend to go ‘pond-less’ has been developed.  With a pond, one needs to do a lot more work to keep the water clear and PH in balance.  The amount of sunlight/shade along with many other factors are all critical for a pond, whether you have fish or not. 

 By installing the same water feature without any (or very little) standing water, the maintenance workload gets cut by up to 90%.  As long as your water feature is installed by someone who uses quality products and has the knowledge to create the best performing feature possible (this could be you, with the right guidance), a pond-less water feature can require as little as 30 minutes a month. Basically, you need to keep the pump clean and the water level up and you’re good to go.

There are many many ways to make a pond-less feature easy to care for.  From auto-fill features, extensive filtration systems, or even a customized maintenance program from your landscaping service, there are products and people available to make the already short list of care instructions, even shorter.

If the idea of a pond-less water feature is attractive to you, let us know and perhaps we can post a do-it yourself guide or even meet with you to discuss some of the many options there are when it comes to adding water to your outdoor living space.