Houston Outdoor Water Features

What are outdoor water features?
Water features are decorative landscape features that use water as their main element. . The use of water to decorate landscapes goes back thousands of years in Western, Middle Eastern, and Eastern Society. Water is a universal symbol of spirit and life, and as such connotes tranquility and peace to the deepest level of the unconscious mind.

What are some of outdoor water features used today?
Just a few include reflecting ponds, waterfalls, custom fountains, and natural ponds. They are most commonly built as the center pieces of gardens. Here, they ground the essence of water as a symbol as something that is also vital to sustaining the very life of vegetation.

There are exceptions to this, however. You may, for example, have a contemporary home that is surrounded by a landscape with very little greenery. The Mentalist nature of such a yard would require us to use outdoor water features 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 a means toward achieving vertical impact. They can also be built into very unique places, such as beds of gravel, Zen-like gardens, or even the middle of a patio.

Can’t I just buy a fountain and install it myself?
Creating order, system, and spectacle all in a singular focal point, however, is not something easy for the do-it-yourselfer or the amateur garden services company to do. Forget about buying pre-fabricated wall fountains or fountain basins from cutesy little garden depots on the side of the road. These elements will not compliment a truly professional landscaping master plan, nor will they work with the specifics of your home architecture when you drag them home and attempt to make them work with their new environment.

Design expertise and professional masonry are what you need to achieve the outcome you truly seek in an outdoor water feature.

Why should I consider spending money on custom outdoor water features?
You should consider the money you spend on any professionally developed water element as an upgrade of your yard that will add curb appeal to your home and property. As we already mentioned, water’s universality as a symbol guarantees its popularity to the viewer, provided it is properly design and constructed.

Are lighting and outdoor water features compatible?
They are not only compatible, but highly recommended as partner elements. Many different types of lights can be installed in and around water elements. The most effective lights are those that go underwater and illuminate the surface from within. This adds the equivalent of a fourth dimension to the vertical element of a fountain or waterfall, and it creates the illusion of greater depth in ponds and pools.

Outdoor Water Features

At Exterior Worlds, we pour all our years of experience, skill and passion into each landscape design, especially outdoor water features. Their forms and uses are many, like water itself. Here are a few examples of ones we’ve designed and installed:

• Custom fountain designs. Custom fountains are dynamic and functional outdoor water features, especially when made using highly personalized and luxurious signature designs. By providing sound and movement, these works of art extend the pleasure of your landscape design by engaging the senses.
• Garden wall fountains. With a touch of elegance, wall fountains enhance your garden by turning it into a delightful and tranquil space. If you have a theme garden, such as a Tuscan garden or modern courtyard design, they can expand that idea.
• Disappearing water fountains. The disappearing water fountain is characterized by the absence of a basin. The water seems to dissolve into the ground, when in reality it goes into a camouflaged pit and then re-circulates. This unique landscape element is a favorite of secluded areas, such as a yoga retreat or reading area.
• Reflecting pools. Reflecting pools, known for their tranquil surfaces, are most often located near taller edifices to serve as a mirror and magnifier. Through the use organic and non-organic components, they link elements together in a mesmerizing focal point.

• Koi ponds. Eye-catching, ornamental, enchanting—these are just a few of the adjectives used to describe koi ponds. Even while providing a home for its fish, these ponds give you tremendous variability, design-wise. For example, naturalistic ponds recall the wilderness. If constructed in a rectangle or circle, they contrast with amorphous shapes found elsewhere. They are as adaptable as nature itself.
• Garden waterfall designs. Using elements found in nature, such as rocks, streams, boulders and elevation, waterfall designs recreate one of the natural world’s more memorable features. Even though they are relatively expensive to install, homeowners love waterfalls for their dramatic and impressive appeal.
• Custom swimming pools. Using both new and classic concepts, a custom pool is one of the key elements in your master landscaping plan. Your relatively large financial outlay is repaid with a high level of functionality and aesthetic appeal as it works perfectly with your lifestyle, extant architecture and topography.

In considering any outdoor water feature within your landscape design, we are very cognizant of how your chosen water element blends with other elements on your property, specifically the architectural style of your home. We work for seamless integration because we want the beauty to shine through—with no jarring distractions. Our planning and designing are further defined by sophisticated style and sumptuous materials. This singular style works whether our clients’ preferences are for the simple or grand scale.

In the end, luxury in your Houston landscape design is communicated in many ways. The sense of luxury is conveyed with hardscapes, softscapes, material choices and attention to detail. Over the years, we have come to believe that an outdoor water feature is one of the most impressive landscaping elements. Water is magic. It soothes, energizes, delights. It can be playful or peaceful, inspired or inspiring. So, go ahead—indulge your aesthetic sense with the art of water.

Masonry Contractors

Why hire a masonry contractor when I can do the work myself?
Building a patio, a walkway, or even a simple structure like a retaining wall is much more complicated than it seems. You have to design your structure from the standpoint of relationship to your home and the totality of your property, not just the structure itself. Also, you have to sort through what appears to be a near infinite number of materials to find the select few that can give you the texture, color, and structural integrity most appropriate to your landscape design.

A masonry contractor, under the general contract services of Exterior Worlds, can save you time and money by listening intently to your description of what you would ultimately like to see constructed in your yard. We can then hire the appropriate masonry professionals, source the very best materials, and combine them with over two decades of expertise in landscape design and outdoor architecture construction.


What are some of the more common forms of masonry Exterior Worlds builds?
Stone Retaining Walls
A retaining wall is very useful to hold back the grade of the otherwise flat Houston landscape that is vulnerable to flooding. Often a retaining wall also serves as a façade of sorts to an elevated outdoor building such as an arbor or summer kitchen. Stone works with any number of landscaping styles depending on its cut, color, and finish.

Outdoor Fireplaces
An outdoor fireplace can be built on a custom patio that can serve as a comfortable outdoor seating area available to guests any time of year. Masonry contractors can build planters for winter flowering plants, low level ground cover, and even small trees into these patios to create an illuminated courtyard warmed by the light of a fire.

Patios
Exterior Worlds has a team of masonry contractors that represent some of Houston’s finest custom patio design specialists. These experts build your patio to the scale of your yard and the scope of your intended guest lists.

Walkways
Masonry contractors can strategically build all sorts of concrete, brick, or stone pathways to cross and crisscross your yard, connecting key points of interest and balancing the relationships between otherwise very divergent elements.

Why would I hire a landscaping company instead of just finding an individual masonry contractor?
A masonry contractor is normally not trained in garden design, tree services, yard care, and tree preservation. In order to make sure that the new hardscape elements balance with your house and the vegetation that surrounds it, it is better to hire a landscaping company like Exterior Worlds to work as the general contractor for your project.

The outcome will be something functional that aesthetically compliments your landscape with seamless design integrity and adds curb appeal to your home.

Tranquil Fountains

The poets tell us that a tranquil fountain soothes the soul. It does so by enchanting the eye and ear. As with all water fountains, tranquil water fountains are wonderful additions to any home landscape design. Exterior Worlds designs tranquil fountains to work a special magic by drowning out the unwanted and annoying noises of modern life without overwhelming the space.

Design is paramount with tranquil fountains. In designing this type of water fountain, your chosen site needs to be conducive to a dripping, slow flow of water. You want the water action to relate to the scale of the space.

As for application, one location for a tranquil water fountain is to design it as an exterior wall fountain. Wall fountains, which come in many different shapes and sizes, are perfect for small or oddly-shaped sites. Our clients have put them in such places as on a brick garden wall, as part of a retaining wall or to enliven a blank fence.

Versatile elements within the landscaping lexicon, tranquil water fountains work well in a range of garden styles, from small garden designs to tropical landscaping. When landscaping for entertainment, a tranquil fountain will delight your guests. For traditional landscapes, a classic urn design works beautifully.

Tranquil water fountains have a place in commercial landscaping, too, such as in restaurants, courtyards, atriums and interior commercial spaces when you don’t want voluminous water sounds and movement to overpower your clientele. For open and airy sites, such as building entrances and golf courses, large-scale fountains are more appropriate.

It is good to keep in mind that there is no one way to design or build a water fountain. You can choose among the many different approaches that will achieve your desired outcome, tranquil or otherwise. Working with open-minded professionals as you will find at Exterior Worlds, who possess technical skills and creative flair, is one of your more important decisions when installing a water fountain.

You will also want to consider a related aspect for your fountain, which is proper exterior lighting. Landscape lighting extends a water fountain’s attraction into the nighttime hours. Depending on your preferences, Exterior Worlds can design it to play up its inherent dramatic effects or accentuate the peaceful ambiance of moving water. Lights also add a safety factor, which is crucial around any water feature.

Water elements, in general, create special focal points in your custom landscaping design by providing movement and creating delightful sounds. Ponds create texture, color and depth. Waterfalls have a mesmerizing quality that is uniquely their own. Moving water adds mysteriously pleasing background music.

It feels somehow right to acknowledge that humans and water are connected at our most basic level. There is just something powerful, helpful and healing about it. Some cultures have codified that feeling, such as several Southwestern Native American cultures where you will find the belief that you should be near moving water whenever you contemplate an important decision. Moving water calms the heart, steadies the breathing, and captivates the mind’s eye, which, when you think about it, is a powerful state of being in which to decide nearly anything.

Exterior Worlds provides upscale landscaping services, such as custom water fountain designs, installations and maintenance, to fine neighborhoods in the Houston area. Call 713-827-2255 for a private consultation.

Garden Wall Fountains

You can turn your Houston outdoor patio into a refuge and retreat with the addition of a garden wall water fountain from Exterior Worlds. Water is one of the four cardinal elements and brings us back to nature, brings us back to ourselves. The calming and nurturing sound of water, its ever-changing movement, and the cycle that it represents all combine to put mind, body and soul at rest.

A garden wall fountain is the perfect solution for people who have always wanted a water fountain, but don’t have room for a free-standing one. Since they come in a variety of sizes, you can find the perfect one for the area you have available—a brick garden wall, a small garden wall or even a fence. In any event, wall fountains take up little space, thus providing a lot bang for your landscaping buck.

The garden wall fountains we use are made from many different material types, including slate, stone, cast concrete and metals, such as steel and copper. You will find strengths and special appeal in each choice, but we always remind our clients that durability is a key characteristic to look for in addition to any aesthetic quality.

When planning for a garden wall fountain installation, you will need to have the appropriate plumbing wherever you place your fountain. As experts in this area, Exterior Worlds will ensure that your fountain has access to incoming water as well as proper drainage.

As another consideration, you will want to envision the wall fountain in both daylight and nighttime conditions, including the landscape lighting you plan to use, to increase your overall pleasure in the fountain. Once again, we would be happy to help with this aspect of the project.

Garden wall fountains can further be used to augment your existing garden theme. A modern courtyard design could come alive with a dramatic contemporary garden fountain, as one example. The proper garden wall water fountain situated in your patio, outdoor room or outdoor lounge design can recall the Old World cultures of Europe; for example, a wall water fountain made from cast stone recalls the traditional Mediterranean wall fountains commonly found in Greece, Italy, Spain, and France. Or you can find a fountain in the style reminiscent of Asia, Mexico or Native America—dependent on the design of your home and gardens, of course.

Visually attractive and soothing water features, wall fountains make any space more interesting, beautiful and restful. A wall fountain designed and installed by Exterior Worlds can make your luxury backyard an extension of your exquisite interior world by serving both as a centerpiece of your landscape design and as a secondary accessory within the overall outdoor design. The sight and sound they create can provide a lovely accoutrement to a luxury spa, become a focal point during a morning meditation, or create as a pleasant backdrop to conversations during times of formal entertainment. For all occasions, wall fountains are works of art that enhance your garden by turning it into a tranquil and enchanted space.

Waterfall Landscape Design

Waterfall landscape design is something of a cornerstone in pond and natural swimming pool construction. Perhaps nothing else makes a pond look more natural than a waterfall. We use all natural materials such as boulders and limestone to create the appearance of miniature cliffs. We lay all of these stones by hand, making sure to position them in patterns that emulate rock formations in the wild. By concealing silent pumps just the rear of these formations, we can recreate the scene of a mountain stream pouring over the edge of a mountain into still below.

People typically hire us to build them a swimming pool that is more than a pool to simply swim in. It is a gathering place and an architectural feature as well. Because the swimming pool works on many levels to establish the landscape as a realm of outdoor luxury living, it is not uncommon to build pools with special features such as spas, water jets, and a waterfall.

In one sense, a Japanese garden is a waterfall landscape design in its own right. Originating East as a carefully manicured environment dedicated to sacred space and meditation, the Japanese form has become popular in the West as a water feature and personal locale of seclusion. Not every client of Exterior Worlds wants a Japanese garden for the same spiritual reasons as its historical progenitors, but all who invest in this form note that it brings a remarkably calming effect to their minds and ultimately becomes something of a retreat that is intimately personal and reflective of to their particular way of life.

Some koi ponds are very contemporary in design, looking almost like shallow swimming pools in modern landscapes fill with abstract forms and contemporary architecture. Others, however, are intended to more closely resemble ponds in nature, and for all intents and purposes fall into the category of pond landscape design.

One of the things that waterfall landscape design can add to a contemporary style koi pond is a touch of nature that brings a sense of organic fluidity to the scene without departing significantly from the Mentalism that is the essence of contemporary landscape design.

Custom fountains can be built to look like actual waterfalls, or they can have waterfalls flowing into them. Either form is preferable to the stereotypical three-tiered fountain that has become far too commonplace and generic in the world of fountain décor. Our fountains are designed to convey a type of awareness, a certain feeling of calm tranquility that is uniquely personal to the owner. Unless specifically instructed otherwise by our clients, we tend to replace the three-tiered fountains we encounter with something more personal and aesthetically linked to natural realm.

Disappearing Fountains

True to their names, disappearing fountains bring water up to dance around the landscape for a bit, and then quietly disappears into some mysterious hidden place underground. These special custom fountains are intended to be highly unique and personal structures tucked away in secluded parts of the yard. Their uniqueness makes them favored centerpieces of any morning garden, reading area, or meditation space built just for the homeowners themselves.

The primary difference between a disappearing fountain and some other fountain design is the absence of a basin. Instead, the water flows into a below grade pit. The elevation of this pit is set by carefully measuring the slope of the surrounding landscape. We may have to dig out a lower, level area in order to get to just the right needed for optimal water flow.

Once the water starts pouring out of the fountainhead, it flows down the sides into this catch pit and filters through the cracks between special materials used to line the pit. If we want to set a European tone, we can spread gravel here, like we did in the morning garden project found in our case histories. If we want a more wilderness feel, stones will be substituted for gravel.

Maybe too we can integrate this form into more intentional and linear landscaping designs, such as Italian gardens, or even the highly abstract realm contemporary landscape design. In these instances, bricks or pavers are often laid down in the catch pit..

In such instances, one thing is common regardless of the materials ultimately chosen. The water disappears. It is that simple, and in that simplicity lies the true beauty of this fountain. Watching the water simply flow between stones or bricks or even slabs of hardscape seems to produce almost a hypnotic effect on the mind.

But what happens to the water then?

It goes into an underground chamber through hidden slots under the filtration layer. A remote pump circulates the water through the system; pushing it back to the fountain head and returning it to the surface world to continue the visible portion of its cycle. The actual fountain itself can be anything from a geometric structure, a mythological deity, or something rudimentary like a piece of pottery or special urn that has been drilled out to accommodate the flow of water.

What we ultimately choose here will be based to a large extent on considerations such as how it looks in relation to the backdrop of the home, how it fits into garden landscape design, and how it juxtapositions itself with nearby hardscapes and outdoor buildings.

Pool Water Fountains

For those of you who are thinking about building a custom swimming pool in your landscaping design, we have a suggestion for you: also consider the addition of a pool water fountain. Over the past few years, a trend has emerged within home and landscape design in which home base is being outfitted to become a retreat and sanctuary from an over-busy, over-full outside world. A pool water fountain is a landscape feature that perfectly fulfills that role. We have seen pool water fountains turn an average swimming pool into something memorable, a true work of art complete with movement, sound, shape and color.

Pool water fountains are fountains that are in or connected to a larger body of water. We get a great deal of pleasure from custom-designing these vehicles of enchanting, vibrant form into our customers’ landscape design. One of our favorite designs is a fountain wall, anywhere from 2-feet to 8-feet tall, with water falling out of a weir, or opening, made of brick, stone or stainless steel. These wall fountains create impressive backdrops for sculpture and planters. Other highly-regarded designs we have installed include rock waterfalls, sprays of shooting water coming out of the pool coping, and decorative vessels—classical shapes such as Grecian urns or playful ones shaped like fish—mounted on the pool deck.

These pool fountains not only add a special aesthetic to a pool; we have seen them provide very practical benefits, as well. If you have children, this fountain type eliminates the need to cordon off another body of water. They eliminate redundancies such as drain lines and chemical treatments for two separate water elements. They also cut down on the common problem with stand-alone water fountains called over-spray. That is, water spraying out of the fountain onto your patio pavers, wooden deck, or concrete patio and creating a slippery surface. With pool water fountains, the water splashes harmlessly into the larger body of water.

For years, Exterior Worlds has been producing luxurious and highly personalized signature designs. This experience allows us to bring to the table a focus on the scale and design that is appropriate for your home and landscape. Additionally, we have the expertise to do the job right from the very beginning. We discuss with our clients the unseen features of professional landscaping, such as using the right valves so that you can adjust the water flow to your liking or installing custom stone work to hide unsightly hardware. We perform this careful pre-planning so that you don’t end up with a conspicuous problem in the end result.

Our staff begins the design process by listening closely to your preferences, needs and desires. We help you focus on questions such as—do you prefer natural forms like waterfalls or the sparseness of contemporary designs? What type of landscape lighting will bring you the most pleasure, work with the water features and other garden structures? From there, we carefully consider your home’s architecture, the topography of your lot and any existing hardscapes—as we do with all our landscaping architecture projects.

Fire and Water Fountains

If you were to rate the many garden structures and hardscapes used by landscape architects along a horizontal scale, fire and water fountains would be situated on the far right—where the big wow-factors live. Fire and water fountains place two opposing forces together to make striking artistic statements in a landscape design. This type of fountain is especially compatible in modern landscape designs. The water portion can even be designed as a contemporary water fountain. The fire merely gives it that much more appeal.

Fire and water fountains make memorable garden designs in homes where entertainment is a recurring activity. Guests definitely remember the party that had such flair—and flare. They also have commercial applications, especially for restaurants, clubs and other entities that conduct business at night.

Exterior Worlds has designed and installed this fountain type for many clients in and around the Houston area. A sampling from our portfolio: we designed a fountain for a client where we built a fire and water model as part of a pool water fountain. A smaller urn that holds the fire element sits in the middle of a classically shaped fountain. This pool water fountain was placed to the side of a custom swimming pool and the fountain water merges into it. For another client, we created a stand-alone fountain that was carved from a large travertine block. The gas and water lines run up through the urn. As the vessel fills with water, the water spills over the edges of the urn, creating pleasing movement and sound. A gas ring is mounted right above the water line and, when lit, the fire appears to be sitting on top of the water.

In addition to outdoor water fountains, we produce highly personalized signature designs for all your landscaping needs. We provide our clients with a focus on scale and style that is imperative when designing something as remarkable and complicated as a fire and water fountain.

At Exterior Worlds, we have the skill and expertise to do the job right from the very beginning, something we’ve proven since 1987. In all our professional landscaping projects, we perform careful pre-planning so that you don’t end up with any disappointing problems in the final product. We stay committed to our founding principles of providing our clients with the best possible service, selection, quality and value. Our goal is to create for you unforgettable luxury without any sacrifice to style or convenience.

In nearly every civilization since time began, humans have been fascinated by the interplay between fire and water. Many elaborate myths from different societies use these two primal elements as major characters. Modern humans have not changed all that much. Fire still enchants. Water still fascinates. With fire and water fountains, our goal is to make a water element that is pure attraction. These fountains are particularly stunning at night and so we pay careful attention to the appropriate landscape lighting. Further, we will be with you every step of the way—from conception to completion.

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.

Outdoor water fountains

Our landscape needs a special focal point. What does Exterior Worlds suggest?

Outdoor water fountains make a stylish statement about your home by creating a refined ambiance. Typically, each fountain is different and therefore an original. It is like building a working piece of art into your landscape. You can use them to enhance the architectural style of your house. They can be designed to be played in, thus providing welcome relief during Houston’s infamous summer season. In these technological times, fountains are quite functional, serving as camouflage for annoying traffic and loud air-conditioning units.

While there are many ways to design and build a fountain, during the typical design process, the scope of the work is defined and a budget developed. Cost factors include material choices, ongoing maintenance contracts, and integration with hardscapes such as custom patios, seat walls, retaining walls, steps etc..

We advise our clients that building a custom outdoor water fountain appears to be like building a swimming pool, but is actually more difficult. It takes practical know-how and experience to avoid common mistakes when designing or constructing one. We work with our clients to provide as much information as possible to insure that their fountain is the success they deserve.

What are some of the designs outdoor water fountains come in?

You can find them in a variety of shapes, sizes and styles, such as Roman, Moorish or Asian-influenced. Additional features can be added, such as a waterfall or a contemporary wall fountain. Whatever style you prefer, be sure to pick a fountain that fits your home and garden landscape.

Designing your own fountains may be more expensive than choosing a prefabricated ones, but our clients have enjoyed these long-term benefits:

• A common problem of ready-mades is “over-spray” or water coming out of the fountain. This malfunction creates subsequent problems, such as the area near the fountain becoming slippery or moldy, the fountain running out of water, and discoloration of the adjacent materials due to chlorination.

A custom-built fountain addresses these problems during the design process.

• Custom-built fountains can be constructed with special features, almost none of which are available on prefabricated fountains. Enhancements include overflow release valves to drain excess water, auto-fill lines to maintain the water level, skimmers, filters, lights, auto-chlorinators and backwash lines (for easy cleaning).

• Custom-built fountains can be built much bigger than prefabricated ones, which is important when working with the scale of some homes and buildings.

What can Exterior Worlds tell us about the materials they are made of?

Many outdoor water fountains are constructed with tile, marble, rock, natural stone, and polished. Other popular choices include stone masonry products such as sandstone, limestone, brick, and concrete blocks. The basins that act as a reservoir are typically made with gunite and rebar, and then plastered—as found with a swimming pool. These interior surfaces are sometimes re-surfaced with stone, pebbles or mosaics. Your process of selection should begin with materials that work in the Houston area. These materials need to handle our climate’s extreme sunlight, rain and other natural elements.

Koi pond design

Koi pond design is gaining popularity in Houston. Recently, one of our major projects in River Oaks involved designing a contemporary garden around the central figure of a koi pond. The details of this project can be referenced in the case study on this project, which details the eclectic nature of this unique architectural feature in relationship to the home and surrounding landscaping elements. Koi ponds are highly unique in terms of both design and construction. They typically occupy a unique position on a property and function as major elements within a landscape design theme.

Koi ponds are so named because they were originally developed as environments for koi fish. Koi are a hybrid species of carp produced by cross-breeding German carp with Asian carp. They are highly colorful and have very soft mouths. They are a very benign and docile species that can even be trained to take food from the hand of a person. Because koi are sensitive fish, the ponds they live in must be designed with maximum life support and safety in mind. The water must be carefully filtered and aerated so there is always plenty of oxygen for the koi to breath. The pond must also measure a certain depth in order to give them room to dart away from predators and lower themselves closer to the bottom of the pool on a hot day. Ideally as well, certain structures should also be incorporated into the overall design in order to give them a place to hide from predators.

While a koi pond must work on all levels to support the life cycle of the fish it contains, its design must also feature exceptional aesthetic elements or patterns of recognizable geometric forms. Many, such as the one we did in our River Oaks project, are rectangular in nature and approximately the size of swimming pools. Others are perfect circles with ornamental coping that compliments patio tile or stone and serves a dual purpose of creating an overhanging structure that covers a portion of the water to create shelter and shade for koi. A koi pond can also be built to mimic a natural body of water in a manner similar to the way we design natural swimming pools. Waterfalls and ornamental rock formations can then be added to create a backyard landscape that is equivalent to a walk through a wilderness park.

Other koi ponds feature designs that range from the formal and traditional to the ultra-contemporary and the avant garde. One of the many popular traditional styles is the Japanese garden. The Japanese garden is a multidimensional blend of greenery and water, normally highlighted with a cascading fountain that looks like a stone stairway. In areas of the city that favor more eclectic blends of architecture and modern art forms, koi ponds can become a form of contemporary art unto themselves, combining unique geometric angles and linear forms with contemporary, custom fountains that add a subjective, three dimensional presence to their aesthetic.

If you have considered adding a koi pond to your residence, no doubt you have already run across koi pond design kits on other websites. Do not buy these. The heavy clay content of Houston soil makes it a very tricky environment for construction of any type, and the logistics of planning, installing, and engineering filtration and aeration of the pond are complexities best delegated to professionals who will give you a satisfying and lasting return on your investment.

Pond Design

Pond design is important to both commercial and residential landscapes. A pond can be built in virtually any style. It can establish the theme of a landscape, or it can support a more complex landscaping design. A good many ponds are deliberately constructed to look like the ones we find in forests and mountains. Others appear deliberately manmade and are designed in this manner to work as compliments to highly contemporary and eclectic architecture.

In most instances, commercial ponds tend to look deliberately man-made and are designed to reflect the architecture of an office park or corporate headquarters. Residential ponds, by contrast, feature designs that heavily emphasize Nature, vegetation, and wildlife. Other than making certain that the size and shape of the pond honor home architecture and outdoor elements, we can basically accommodate any style or sensibility the homeowner is looking to add to the property.

In as much as possible, a pond should look have earth or gravel at the bottom to look as natural as possible. However, exclusively earthen bottoms inside the city limits of Houston are impractical. Heavy rains will flood the pond and alter the shape of the bottom. In order to maintain the form and depth of the pond bottom, we normally build a gunite shell to buttress it against unstable soil conditions that can cause erosion. Gunite creates a very stable, sealed basin for water containment and circulation. Drains and silent pumps can be hidden beneath the surface of the water. Such concealed mechanisms can be used to aerate the water for goldfish and koi, power fountains, or create artificial waterfalls.

Once the gunite shell is built and pumps and drains installed, we almost always add earth or gravel to the bottom of the pond. In addition to the aesthetic this creates, this creates an ideal habitat for wildlife. Many plant species such as lily pads and reads will grow just as hardily in a gunite pond provided the layer of soil or gravel is thick enough. A number of native wildlife species, such as turtles, bluegill perch, tadpoles, and adult frogs lay their eggs in this soil and hide from predators.

To further magnify the pond and make it stand out in a yard, we will often design ledges around the water where we can place a number of plant species. Ledges also provide shelters for aquatic life, especially if they are built to curve inward under the water. Fish can hide under these ledges and remain completely concealed and safe. We can also build rock formations and fountains that look like natural waterfalls. Such ponds can even be designed as natural swimming pools that are environmentally friendly and also safe for human use.

These many elements are based upon the intended use of the pond and the overall theme of the surrounding landscaping design. No two ponds we design will ever be the same, and homeowner consultation throughout the process plays a very large role in determining the specifics of the final outcome.

If you are interested in any high-quality landscape services, Exterior Worlds has been providing the high-end residential landscape services and garden design services discussed above for the Houston and the surrounding areas including The Memorial Villages (Piney Point Village, Bunker Hill Village, Hunter Creek Village), Tanglewood, River Oaks, West University and the greater Houston (Hou), area since 1987.

Custom Fountain Design

Custom fountains are designed to fulfill a special role in a specific portion of the landscape. They are developed in accordance with a comprehensive landscaping plan that establishes the theme and tone of the landscape, and they play a major role as individual elements in relationship to the whole. Each one must stand alone as an individual work of art that extends its aesthetic into its surroundings to the extent that it represents an experience and a state of mind.

One of the most exciting things we have always loved about custom fountain design is the sheer joy of creating a functioning work of art. Fountains are dynamic elements, contributing both sound and motion to an otherwise static landscape. In the day, they add tranquility to the landscape that offers a refuge from the busy, stressful world outside. Many people even begin their day sitting on a special patio near such a fountain. They find that the subtle nuances of how the water falls, drips, and splashes back into itself bring them a sense of peace and uncertainty in a troubled and uncertain world. At night, special lighting can transform ornament and sound into a magical display of illuminated liquid form.In a very real sense, custom fountain design involves a special recreation of certain archetypal forms (stone, water, and light) in a highly personalized fashion that speaks to a number of considerations at once. First and foremost, as with all landscaping architecture, we must make certain that the basic physical structure of the fountain compliment the architecture of the home. We must also make certain that basic geometric patterns that we use to build the structure are also reflective to a certain extent of the organic geometry of gardens, outdoor buildings, and other water features. There is a great deal to consider when making these oftentimes very difficult design decisions. Will a custom fountain work best as a linear trough, a multi-tiered design, or something completely abstract built into an avant garde or highly contemporary landscape? Does the water need to come up or pour down? Will the fountain be designed as part of another structure, such as a pond or custom swimming pool? Should the lighting be concentrated on only the water, or on the entirety of the unit? If he client wishes the fountain to be adjustable to some extent, what mechanisms will we install to adjust the height of the water, or vary the intensity of lighting?

The answers to many of these questions are going to initially be based on client preference, need, and desire. It is our policy to respect the wishes of the homeowners and give them an end result that truly satisfies their expectations. It is also our responsibility to make certain that the fulfillment of these expectations is done in accordance with sound professional principles. Custom fountain design may appear to be a simple matter of building a shell with a decorative bottom and coping, but it is much more complex in reality. Masking the sound of the pump is often the greatest challenge that do-it-yourselfers and amateur landscapers normally run into. Managing debris that falls into the fountain is another problem. Pumps and filters have to be carefully designed not only to run silently, but to be protected as much as possible from foreign elements that can and do find their way into the water.

Professional landscapers know how to find the answers to all of questions we have looked at today, and they know how to mask the mechanical and the functional behind the aesthetic and the ambient. While the investment required for custom fountain design is significantly higher than purchasing a premade unit, the return on investment that comes through superior longevity and more robust functionality and aesthetic represent both tangibles and intangibles that nothing short of the best can ever provide.