Garden Waterfall Design

Garden waterfall design continues to grow in popularity throughout the Houston Area. Many residents have become tired of traditional swimming pool and fountain design. The garden waterfall is a very ornamental landscape feature than can add a significant aesthetic to any back yard. Waterfalls are very important to the Japanese Garden design, natural pool design, and certain custom fountains as well.

The visible elements of garden waterfall design are the same as those found in Nature. You will see boulders in high places at the top of the falls, and rocks scattered along the edges of both sides of the stream. Many of these boulders are actually planters with vegetation planted inside them. This more closely resembles the manner in which vegetation grows in and around rock formations in the wild, and it completely conceals the true nature of the planter in a form that you would typically associate with wilderness areas.

The unseen elements of garden waterfall design are a bit different, however. In Nature, rivers and stream cut through rock and dirt to form deep channels. When these channels reach a cliff or steep slope, the water plummets in either a vertical or near-vertical fall to a lower elevation. It is simply not cost effective to build a garden waterfall using a rock basin. Instead, concrete is used to form the basin just like it is in swimming pool design. Concrete is not only cost effective, but is more resistant to shifting Houston soils and is by nature waterproof. Once the concrete dries, we then place rocks over the concrete to hide it, making the stream channel appear natural.

Slope is the hardest thing to recreate in garden waterfall design. In Nature, waterfalls occur in mountainous regions. It is not easy to recreate this in Houston, however. Our land is very flat in most places. The only exceptions are properties along bayous where dry gullies and ravines have been cut out of the ground by seasonal rains. These can be sometimes be shaped into garden waterfalls that run into natural swimming pools, but the slope has to be just right and look consistent with the rest of the property.

There are clients who are willing to pay the money to create hills and slopes in order to have a waterfall garden that looks truly authentic. In order to create these forms, we have to do more than simply add artificial hills and cuts into deep pools. We actually have to elevate an entire portion of the yard in order to make the slope look natural, and to make the sudden drop-off into the basin realistic. Attempting to bring the scale down to fit a smaller area, or attempting to create smaller slopes and hills on a limited budge, will generate poor results.