Outdoor Water Features
Outdoor water features are decorative landscape features that use water as their main element. They are vital to the attraction factor of residential landscape design. No everyone likes the same trees, flowers, stones, or bricks; and certainly not everyone likes the same geometric designs.
However, the universality of water as a symbol of spirit and life is well documented throughout human history. Its use as a landscape decoration goes back millennia and is found equally throughout Western, Middle Eastern, and Eastern Civilizations. In one form or fashion, water connotes to all of these cultures the serenity and depth of the undiscovered Self beneath the surface of the conscious mind.
In today’s professional landscaping design, outdoor water features are customized reflecting ponds, infinity pools, waterfalls, fountains, and natural ponds. In most instances they are built as the center pieces of gardens. Here, they work as focal points that link water as a symbol of life to organic life itself.
There are exceptions to this rule, however. Persons who live in contemporary homes are surrounded by landscapes that have minimal vegetation. The Mentalist nature of such a yard would requires the landscape designer to use water to create a sense of fluid linkage between lines, angles, and radii that punctuate the landscape.
Custom fountains play a very important role in contemporary landscaping because they are often used to replace tall-growth vegetation as means of generating vertical impact. Frequently here, they are built into very unique places, such as beds of gravel, contemporary rock gardens, or even as the centers of patios.
To create focus, order, balance, and simultaneously generate drama all in a single form is not easy for the amateur garden service company to accomplish, nor is it recommended for the do-it-yourselfer.
There is little point to buying anything pre-fabricated when it comes to outdoor water features. These elements will not compliment true, professional landscaping design, nor can they possibly work on any real artistic level with the specifics of home architecture.
In order to get these elements to truly magnify the property, one must invest in design expertise and professional masonry.
Such an investment is never overspending. When one considers that any such investment is going to instantly add attraction factor and curb appeal to the home, it becomes self-evident that in the long run a financial return will be possible if the home is sold.
If the home is not sold, the sheer upgrade in outdoor living is inestimable in the emotional sense. In either scenario, the universality of water ensures appeal to residents, guests, and prospective new homeowners alike.
Lighting is not only compatible with outdoor water features, but also highly recommended as a partner element. The many different types of lights that one can install in and around water allow for any feature built into the landscape to become truly multi-dimensional at night.
For fountains and waterfall, it adds the equivalent of a fourth dimension to the vertical impact. For ponds and pools, it creates a sense of greater depth and safe invitation to explore beyond the surface.