Is your Landscape Ready for Spring?

 Spring is here in Asheville! (I hope!)

It's a great time to get your landscape ready for the coming season. 

We spent some time this week in our clients yards blowing off hardscapes and ch cling for any winter damage. 

It's a perfect time to mulch your existing beds and check your irrigation system. 

If you have a water feature, you should get it cleaned out and check the pumps and filtration system. A little maintenance goes a long way. 

 

Your pond and fish are now just waking up from a long winters nap. 

Don't wait to long, it will be getting hot soon! If you wait until summer to get your pond cleaned you could disturb the ecosystem of your feature. 

April and May is a the prime time to clean out your pond. 

 Its also time to think about planning for your garden and planting some fresh flowers, perennials and trees. 

Give us a call if you need help with landscape design in Asheville. 

Thanks!

Jacob 

Living Waters Landscaping 

828-301-8017

Pond Maintenance Asheville

Spring is almost here in Asheville, Nc.
It's a great time to consider getting your pond or water feature cleaned out and ready for the warmer weather. In the winter, you pond will go dormant. Fish sleep and the active bacteria that helps keep your pond clean is less active. Aquatic plants are also dormant in cold weather.
Living waters landscaping offers a full service spring start ups for your pond and waterfall.
A typical spring start up includes:
-Detailed cleaning and leaf removal
-Filter, pump and skimmer box cleaning
-A professional check of the system for leaks and other potential problems
-Introduction of seasonal beneficial bacteria
-A smile and a good attitude while we work!

We offer one time, monthly and seasonal maintenance to fit the needs of your pond. We are highly knowledgeable in all types of water feature systems
Including:
-Koi ponds
-Pondless waterfalls
-Fountains
-Natural swimming ponds
-Traditional garden ponds

We can offer advice on additional filtration for your system as well as options to make your pond more energy efficient.

Call Jacob today for a free estimate.

828-301-8017

Koi Pond San Jose

Although the majority of landscaping we do is in the Santa Cruz area, we just finished constructing an incredible Koi pond in San Jose. It features a nice simple waterfall, two 1/4 horse power pumps, a UV filter and a pressurized bead filter.

One pump feeds the filter from the bottom drain, the other pump feeds two mid-water return jets from the skimmer. The desire of our client was to have a more appropriate space for her koi & a pond that would require less pond maintenance.

Seeing a beautiful water landscape when we're done is one of our favorite parts of pond construction. 

I will post some project pics later.

Enjoy.

Santa Cruz Landscaping: Clay Lined Ponds

I had a chance this week to return to a project that we finished last year in Watsonville, which is just outside of Santa Cruz.

This project was an existing 50,000 gallon natural pond with a small stream flowing onto it. 

Our job was to re-work the pond, stabilize the edges and add a waterfall.

So, we drained and reshaped the pond and imported clay pond-fill. 

Using clay as a pond liner is great for natural ponds that don't need a contained system or a consistent water level. Bentonite clay makes a great pond liner, because it expands when it gets wet and seals in almost all the water.

We did some rock work around the edges of the pond for stability, and added a gravel beach area for swimming access. The pond was to be kept as natural as possible because it is going to be used as a turtle and frog habitat. 


Once the pond was complete we added a waterfall and a biological filter system. We wanted this system to have natural filtration only. 

We used locally harvested Limestone for all the rock work.

The waterfall runs off a 3/4 horse power external pump. We installed two 6 inch bottom drains that gravity feed into a small bog. 
The pump draws water from the bog and pushes it to the top of the waterfall. 

At the top of the falls we installed the biological filter. This is a small bog like area that the water percolates through. It is filled with gravel and has filtering and decorative aquatic plants. The biological filter works by allowing beneficial bacteria a place to live and help filter the water as it passes through.

We added some low voltage landscape lighting and landscaped the project area.

Santa Cruz Landscaping: Boulder Creek Koi Pond #3

Well, we are finishing up this rather fun landscaping project in Boulder Creek, which is just outside Santa Cruz. At this project we are retrofitting a Koi pond and dressing up the existing landscaping.

Grouting the pathways

The new filtration is done, the pathways are done and the planting will be done tomorrow.

As with any pond retrofit or re-build, we have found some issues that need to be cared for:
First, we finally got all the new pumps and filtration installed. This included building a new deck and retaining wall to house the pumps and filters. We have two external pumps running, one for filtration and one for the waterfalls. When we finally turned on the waterfall pump we noticed that the existing falls was leaking drastically out the back! It looked like the builder of the waterfall did the installation rather well, so I was confused as to why it was leaking.

Fixing the waterfall

So, we decided to dismantle the upper part of the waterfalls to start the troubleshoot. We quickly found the issue....
a 6 inch hole in the liner that looked like it was chewed out by a gopher or a rat!!

This can usually mean that we would have to rebuild the whole waterfall. Luckily, we only had to fix the upper falls. We pulled out the rock and installed a new biological filter box and seamed the liner to that above the hole.
It is now flowing great and our client actually likes it more then the original waterfall!!!

Our client had one koi fish left from his original pond.
It had been living in a small tank for the past 3 weeks as we finished the retrofit. Yesterday we set the koi free and he seems to love his new home.


The filtration system is running well and we are all happy with the landscaping project so far. I  look forward to seeing the pond, koi , and plant life grow and mature over the years.

6 Light 240 watt UV filter with large Advanced Bead Filter

Santa Cruz Landscaping: Boulder Creek Koi Pond #2

In my last post I was talking about a landscaping project we are working on this week outside Santa Cruz in Boulder Creek.

It is a Koi pond retrofit with some pathway work and some general landscaping.

I wanted to post some progress pictures from the pathway work we are doing. We just finished setting the stone and we will come back on Monday to grout.

We are using an Arizona Rose Select stone for the paths. We set the stone on a concrete footer and mortared it in.

 

We took care in our selection of stone and took some extra time in 'cutting in' the stone so that we could give our client a quality pathway.

Each stone was hand cut using a diamond blade on an angle grinder.

It looks a little messy now, but we will get it cleaned up next week when we grout and bring in some new plants and mulch!

www.livingwaterslandscaping.com

Asheville Landscaping: Water Feature Fun

I love building ponds and waterfalls. I enjoy every part of creating water features from design to finish. 
Today I wanted to post about adding fun design features to water features whether: pond, stream or waterfall. There are many ways to make your pond, stream or waterfall beautiful & functional.

A few things I like to put into water features are:

'Old World' Stone Bridge over Stream

Bridges, statuary, aquatic lighting, decks and sometimes some drift wood if you want a  natural look you might find on a trip to the beach.

A bridge is always a great water feature if it works in layout for your yard or garden. We have used stone, wood and metal to breach a gurgling stream or tranquil pond. 
 

Another great landscaping water feature is a statue that is placed correctly. This is a simple way to add a lot character to your landscape.

Remember to try and carry a theme when you are choosing a statue. In the picture below, we chose a small stone Pagoda to accent the waterfall. This was in keeping with the Japanese garden we were creating.

                                                                                       

                                                                          

Hillside Pond with 'Wine Deck'

 Another fun landscaping idea to add to your water feature is a deck. It gives a great place for relaxing by a waterfall or watching the fish frolic in the pond. I like the look and feel of adding different elements to the garden. Mixing wood, stone, water, and earth together make a feature or garden that is both functional and artistic.     

                                  

  Don't forget the aquatic and landscape lighting when planning your water feature. Aquatic lighting is always one of my favorite parts of the job. I like to get creative and put lights in little nooks and under little streams in the falls.   LED lights work great for pond and waterfall lighting because they are more energy efficient and they last much longer than halogen bulbs. 

More fun landscaping water features ideas soon to come!!

Japanese Garden  

www.livingwaterslandscaping.com

Santa Cruz Landscaping: Another Pondless Waterfall

Here is another Pondless Waterfall we built in Scotts Valley, Ca, which is a city just outside of Santa Cruz. Pondless waterfalls are a beautiful piece of landscaping. This was one of my favorite features to work on. Although the excavation was tough, it was a solid rock hillside, it still came out beautiful.

The first picture was taken just after excavation. As you can see we are about to put the liner in and start building.
For this job we used a Bobcat and a Mini-excavator during this construction. This allowed us to use some good sized boulders.
Our clients chose Sonoma Fieldstone and Cold Water Canyon stone to use in this landscaping feature. These stones work well together and make a very natural water feature. Once again, its our goal to create waterfalls you might see in any mountains whether Santa Cruz or some other beautiful coastal range.

I will be posting more on pondless waterfalls, pond filtration, pond maintenance and other landscaping features in the future. If you want more information please visit my website @ Living Waters Landscaping.com 

The rest of the pictures show the finished product. I plan to go back for some more pics next year when the plants have had a chance to mature.

Santa Cruz Landscaping: Maintaining Pond Balance

Maintaining balance in our ponds is important. The ponds we create are designed after what we see in the Santa Cruz Mountains streams and water features. In the same way that we design our ponds and waterfalls after nature, we want them to function like they do in nature. As always our landscaping is meant to recreate what we all enjoy in the mountains. 
 

The thought behind the filtration on our ponds is based on the natural ecosystem of a pond or waterfall. Water is filtered by flowing over and through rock and sand. Then the water is aerated when flowing over waterfalls. When the water reaches the pond, thats where the natural eco-system thrives. Plants in the pond cleanse the water while drawing nutrients in through their roots. Fish eat algae and mosquitoes. Then the beneficial bacteria in the bottom of the pond goes to work. Beneficial bacteria consume fish waste and other organic matter. They convert deadly ammonia into nitrites and then into harmless nitrates and nitrogen. Ponds are truly a wonder when considering landscaping! 

After all the biological filtration is done, the water is then mechanically filtered. The water is drawn into a skimmer box from the pond. In the skimmer there is a leaf catch for large debris, and a woven mesh screen for smaller particles. Water is also gravity fed through bottom drains into settling tanks that help separate waste and clean water. The clean water is then pumped through a pressurized bead filter. The bead filter is another great place to house beneficial bacteria. The clean water is then pumped back into the system, either to the top of a waterfall, or to underwater circulating jets. Some other features we install to help with water quality are, aerators, UV filters and natural bog filters.
Although this sounds complicated it is a relatively simple landscaping feature for all to enjoy; especially the Koi! 

I will be posting more on pond maintenance and pond filtration in the future. If you want more information you can always visit my website @ 
Living Waters Landscaping.com 

Santa Cruz Landscaping: Filtrific Water Feature Equipment