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A Backyard Shangri-La
| Article
# : |
16448 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1989 |
657 Words |
| Author
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Alice Rindler Shapin
Alice Rindler Shapin is a Washington-based free-lance writer. |
Water is trickling, aromatic magenta and blush pink lilies are unfolding under the shimmering moonlight.
Is it a Hollywood set?
The tropics?
No. It's a backyard pond, known to landscape designers as a "watergarden." One can add a splash of atmosphere and the soothing sound of flowing water to any garden.
And according to experts, water gardens are easy to maintain. After all, there's no mowing, weeding, or watering.
In Potomac, Maryland, Patsy Miller had longed for the sound of a brook on her property. So four years ago, she commissioned a design landscape company to create a waterfall and two ponds, transforming her property into a dream realized: Her front pond is free-form concrete, with a pump, fountain, lights, and a walkway of natural fieldstone boulders that leads to a small bridge. Her backyard pond has a waterfall. "When I'm sitting in the sunroom with the light beaming in, I feel as though I'm in the woods, babbling brook and all. It's a perfect place to unwind," says Miller.
She stocked her front pond with cherry red and white lilies, miniature bamboo, and fish. "The first year, I named all eighteen fish and became a fish expert. The best part was having a pet but not having to stay home to feed it. And sometimes a frog drops in."
Marlene Bolze of
... (1997 of 3849 Characters)
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