Waterfalls Make A Water Garden Special

One of the neat things about a water garden is that it can look really spiffy in a very short period of time. Thus the pond Laury Lewis put in this past May looked handsome enough by the end of the summer to merit a finalist’s award in our garden contest. That just doesn’t happen when you’re planting in the ground. Situated in the small paved area behind his city townhouse, the water garden takes up roughly half the available space with the balance given to an eating area surrounded by an interesting assortment of colorful flowering plants such as red celosia and the bright red and yellow ‘Picasso’ canna. More tomatoes than he can ever use himself thrive in containers on the sunny roof.

Laury built the pond with a little help from his friends and the professional Rick Walsh of RikRock in Northbrook. It took four men, each working ten hours, to complete the project. The mechanics are simple, with electricity from the garage running under the pathway and coming up under the rocks that surround the pond while a recirculating skimmer box is concealed under the annual sweet potato vines. Disconnecting the pump for winter is just a matter of pulling the plug. Frogs and snail call the pond home, no fish.

Largely self-taught, Laury calls the garden his “cheap therapy,” although he shrewdly notes that every dollar spent on landscaping increases the value of any property. Yet he firmly asserts that he often feels more success working in the garden than in working the development deals of his regular job. “It’s just you and nature,” he explains, “you and the soil.”

Chicagoland Gardening Magazine article 1998

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