Enhancing your Backyard with Beautiful Water Features

 Guest Blogger #545, Entry #1235, May 30, 2012

There are few things better than coming home after a long day of dealing with gridlock and the demands of a busy job and finding a tranquil atmosphere in which to let your hair down, take off your shoes, and breathe a sigh of relief. As humans, our threshold for managing stress has its limits, which means if we don’t get a break we’ll eventually blow a gasket. So most of us create some kind of sanctuary at home that allows us to relax the moment we arrive. And in case you didn’t know, the sights and sounds of nature are ideally suited for creating a sense of serenity.

Enhance your backyard with a water garden

Image via: Houzz

Enhancing your backyard

Once you’ve got a fence and some foliage for privacy, a patio complete with comfy furnishings and hanging lamps, and plenty of fragrant plants to eradicate the smell of exhaust and provide you with a much-needed infusion of oxygen, it’s time to consider how you can entice your auditory sense, as well. A water feature can offer a fantastic solution.

Benefits of adding a water feature

There are several benefits to adding a water feature to your backyard space. Aside from the peace and tranquility it can provide thanks to burbling and tinkling sounds, it also creates a sort of white noise that can help to diminish competing annoyances like shouting kids, barking dogs, your neighbor’s television (audible thanks to his open window), and nearby traffic. Of course, you can also create a gorgeous focal point in your yard, up the style factor, and increase the intrinsic value of your outdoor space. With many homeowners looking for ways to virtually expand the square footage of their tiny spread by creating an outdoor room, you can do a lot by designing a seating area with a watery centerpiece.

Helpful tips for creating a water garden

Image via: Houzz

Where to start?

So how do you go about incorporating a water feature into your outdoor décor? In truth, it’s not as difficult as you might think. Since you don’t have to worry about spillage or splashing like you would with an indoor fountain, the only limitations are the amount of space you have, the budget you’re working with, and your own imagination. The size and cost of your water feature are determined by finite limitations, but your imagination can really go wild here. Of course, it couldn’t hurt to check out your options amongst the offerings already on the market. You simply have to decide if you want to go with basin fountains, wall fountains, drip features, or pools of some sort, and then select from materials that are natural or synthetic.

For example, water walls are fairly popular embellishments for backyards these days, and you could select a wall made from rough stone or one formed from beaten copper. The difference in material, texture, size, and shape will alter the way the water sounds as it falls. You might also go for hanging beads suspended from a beam of some sort with water dripping down them into a pool (or skip the beads and just let the water fall). Or you could opt for graduated pools where water falls from one to the next only to be recycled to the top pool. Whatever you choose, it’s sure to make your space that much more relaxing and provide for the outdoor haven that will have you itching to get home each day.

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