Designing Landscape with Water Features

Not only does adding a water feature make a landscape look more appealing, but it also provides a relaxing space, attracts small wildlife, boosts the health of surrounding plants, and increases the value of a home.

As with any landscaping job, though, water should be carefully planned to work with the natural environment. “A lot of times the property and the lay of the land will dictate the feature that we can put in,” says Phil Terribile of Terri Associates Landscaping Corporation in Brightwaters, New York. “If the setting is more contemporary or traditional, we could do sheer descents off of flagstone wall. If the house has a natural-looking stone veneer, we could go with a boulder waterfall with maybe some of the same types of stone. If you have really contemporary stucco, you want a cleaner look, maybe a boulder retaining wall hanging over a pool with some big waterfall rocks and spillovers.”

There are no rules, just aesthetic decisions to be made. “Every property has its own single personality,” Terribile says, “and we have to draw that personality out to connect everything together.”

When deciding how large a water feature should be, sight is just as important as sound. “The water feature and the sounds it can echo throughout the property, people find that very relaxing,” Terrible says. “But if you do a big waterfall, it can be too loud. Some people like that — it’s almost a water-park effect. But some people like it more serene, like a trickle on sheer descent or retaining wall.” If you want something that achieves both those ends — a big presence in a quiet package — you could build a long stream that empties into a small pond.

When adding water to a landscape, one of the big decisions to make is whether to use vinyl or gunite as a liner. “Gunite is very expensive, but you can do a lot of things with it that you couldn’t do with a vinyl pool,” Terribile says. Still, he adds, vinyl applications have come a long way recently. In just the past couple of years technology has allowed vinyl to be worked in different shapes and custom sizes, in ways that previously you could do only with gunite.