The Water Garden Encyclopedia by Philip Swindells

From the Publisher

The Ultimate Guide to Designing, Constructing, Planting and Maintaining Garden Ponds and Water Features

Whether it's a simple pond, an imaginative waterfall, or a lavish fountain, the water garden is fast-becoming one of the most popular and exciting backyard features.

Water weaves an exciting strand into the tapestry of any garden. A calm pool mirrors the sky and surrounding trees. Fountains, streams and waterfalls introduce movement and the relaxing sound of splashing water.

The Water Garden Encyclopedia opens with a section that explains how to get started and covers the basic principles of siting, finding the right equipment, and calculating sizes and capacities. The contents are then divided into six main sections:

• Water gardening in containers
  
• Formal ponds and water gardens
  
• Natural water gardens
  
• Waterfalls and fountains
  
• Imaginative use of pond features and decorations
  
• Pond plants and cultivation
  

• Lavishly illustrated and comprehensive
  
• The ultimate guide to designing, constructing, planting, and maintaining garden pools and water features
  
• Packed with tips, instructions, and photographs that guide the gardener through each stage
  

Publishers Weekly

Combining comprehensive text and superb photographs, Swindells's (Natural Water Gardens) newest offers a host of ideas for creating and maintaining many types of water gardens, from small containers with fountains to re-creations of natural landscape settings. The most ambitious projects will be beyond the amateur gardener, but the design ideas and the photographs of actual gardens that illustrate these ideas are so enticing that even novices may be tempted to try. The simpler projects-pools with miniature plants in pots, fountains in large ornamental jars, troughs with pygmy water lilies and dwarf rushes-are well within the reach of beginners. More ambitious gardeners may be inspired to create ponds, waterfalls, wildlife pools, water meadows, bogs, brooks, streams, even lakes. Instructions for making each type of garden are given through a combination of text and photographs that clearly illustrate each step in the process, from choosing and marking out the site to finishing the project with suitable aquatic plants. Accompanying each design idea are lists of water-loving plants suitable for that type of garden-including water lilies, reeds and rushes, bog plants, and floating and submerged aquatics-and there are chapters on how to buy, plant, fertilize, divide, propagate and care for these plants. This beautifully illustrated volume may feel more like a coffee-table book than an encyclopedia, but it covers its subject in depth. (Mar.) Forecast: Packed with 400 color photos, and listed as Book-of-the-Month Club and Garden Book Club selections, this nicely priced volume will likely find its way into many a gardener's hands. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Over the past decade or more, water gardening has grown from a novelty to a nearly ubiquitous feature of American gardens. This is reflected by the amazing selection of pond equipment and plants that can now be found at landscaping and Home Depot stores. For example, to grow a waterlily in a barrel, gardeners used to have to seek out half-barrels and seal them with rubber liners. These days, you can buy a barrel ready-made for the purpose, along with small pumps, plants, and fish. Given the many dozens of books in print on water gardening, there is no urgent need for a new book on the subject, but this one does offer a very up-to-date account of the supplies currently available, such as liners, pumps, ready-made waterfalls, fountains, and bubblers. It is also more sophisticated than most guides, describing how to make unique features such as cobblestone beaches, water meadows, bridges, islands from bricks or sandbags, and even a "dewpond." The occasional British reference, such as "hedgehogs in the pond," does not detract from the usefulness of this book for Americans. The photographs alone are gorgeous and instructive. Recommended for gardening collections where this type of gardening is popular and the availability of water is not an issue.-Beth Clewis Crim, Prince William P.L., VA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• ISBN: 1552977153
  
• ISBN-13: 9781552977156
• Format: Hardcover, 256pp
• Publisher: Firefly Books, Limited
• Pub. Date: March 2003
• Sales Rank: 381,724

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

Water gardening is one of the most exciting styles of gardening. Within a pool there exists a complete underwater world where plants, fish, snails and other creatures depend upon one another for their continued existence. Managing such a complex world successfully is enormously satisfying.

Not that the water garden is solely the pool, for there can be spreading margins and bog areas which offer great opportunities for growing a rich diversity of plants that cannot otherwise be cultivated in the garden. Where garden space is restricted, then plants and fish can be enjoyed equally well in tubs and containers.

Most people appreciate the great beauty of waterlilies, the most exotic of all aquatics which are available in varieties from the pygmies that will dwell in a couple of inches of water to giants with blossoms the size of soup dishes which must be grown in a lake. Deep-water aquatics are suitable companion plants that are useful for smaller bodies of water where their spread does not dominate. Marginal aquatics and bog garden plants dress the poolside with character and color, while submerged aquatics and free-floating plants provide the necessary requirements to ensure a balanced eco-system.

Ornamental fish add life and movement to the water Available in a wide array of shapes, sizes and colors there are many hardy varieties that will co-exist and often breed successfully in the garden pond. Snails and freshwater mussels complete the picture as far as the requirements for creating a balanced environment are concerned, but frogs, toads and newts often choose to make their home in a water garden and they are an added bonus.

Water is an attraction in its own right. Such a feature need not be dressed with plants in order to be visually appealing or successful. Moving water, whether fountain, waterfall or stream, holds an attraction of its own, and with the addition of lighting the effect can become magical. While tumbling waterfalls and cascading fountains are traditional and much-loved features of the water garden, pleasing moving water creations can be achieved on a smaller scale with bubblers and millstones.

Ornaments and decorative features of all kinds can be introduced to a water garden-not only spouting statuary, but islands, bridges and causeways. The opportunities for creating an outstanding garden feature are legion. A pool may be at its peak of perfection during summer but it also has great attributes at other times of the year, even during winter. It is in winter that the water can be seen at its best, devoid of foliage-a beautiful natural mirror reflecting all about it. A water garden is truly an all-year-round attraction and irrespective of its scale provides great pleasure. It can be as complex or as simple as desired, and with the modern materials that are now available the creation of an attractive water feature should be within the capabilities of all.