Over my years of gardening both personally and professionally, I have become attracted to water gardening. Along with having water gardens within my landscapes for over 20 years, I have also designed and managed water gardens for many of my landscape clients and created Evergreen’s water garden department created to supply our retail customer’s interest in water gardening. 
The neat thing about water gardening is that is can fit just about any persons level of interest. Just like any garden can be customized to meet a gardener’s special interest. The sound and appearance of water is so fascinating and attracts all levels of ages. Incorporated into the landscape, water gardens seem to add an element of sound, movement, and life that can be duplicated.
In my landscape, I have a very small water garden, approximately 3’x5′ that’s nestled into my planting and only seen as you walk to the entry of my home. Very low care and houses just enough fish to keep the appearance of movement, color, and life in the water. In the back of my home, I have a much larger water positioned as the center point of my landscape encapsulated within my landscape. Its size is approximately 18′ long by 6-8′ wide and is accompanies by 2 recirculation creeks and falls that twine through the surrounding garden. With its generous size, it also includes a variety of aquatic plants as well as a variety of gold fish and koi that are delight for me to feed and enjoy.
A couple of years back, I was designing a extensive landscape make over for my sister’s home. This included some extensive retaining walls, new stairway access way to the back entry, and various landscape features and plantings including natural boulder placement, etc. At the last minute, we decided to design in a water garden as a project addition. Though this feature was, in value, a small part of this project’s combined budget, it’s the single most noticeable feature that’s recognized and remembered by my sister Nellie and visitors to her home.
I’ll close by making one thing clear to one of the most common misconceptions of water gardening. It sounds time consuming and high maintenance but I’m here to tell you that it isn’t. Being an owner of my own business that takes a lot of my time, I don’t have the time to spend on any high maintenance tasks and spend most of time I have available for my garden to tweak plantings, water, weed, and customize my garden’s appearance. Feeding my fish daily has become a habit for me to interact but this is not actually necessary. Fish, as with many elements of water gardening, are very low maintenance and guidance of how to set up and manage the basic necessities of a water garden will make you a believer in the fun of water gardening.
