The Benefits of Adding Water Features to Your Garden

If you ran through a sprinkler as a kid, you know the joy adding a little water can bring to the backyard. Water features in our gardens are transformative. They bring an entirely new element and add to the ways our senses perceive the space. 

Garden water features aren’t just for huge gardens and big budgets and they can be sized to fit anywhere from a tabletop miniature garden to a sprawling backyard. Premade water features can be expensive, but there are numerous plans and how-to guides available on DIY methods that require minimal investment. 

A large old flower pot and a submersible pump make an easy patio bubbling fountain. To me, that’s part of the fun, designing and creating it to fit my likes and the site I’ve selected. Whether constructed from upside-down trash can lids, partially buried plant saucers, two buckets and a small submersible pump, a kid’s wading pool, or involving pond liners and boulders, water features are within the abilities of most gardeners. 

Water features have been incorporated in garden design for centuries. The easiest and likely quickest water feature to add to your garden is a simple bird bath. An inexpensive birdbath can be bought, set out, filled, and attract birds and other critters almost instantly. However, water features in the garden or yard can range from as simple as a saucer of water to as elaborate as an artificial stream, complete with a waterfall and multiple ponds. Regardless, adding a water feature to your garden makes it a better habitat for both animals and people.  

When considering water feature location and size, consider a few factors:

• How will you fill it? Water features typically lose water to evaporation, and you will need to provide replenishment water from time to time. Small volumes can be filled with a pitcher or watering can, but the larger amounts needed for a small pond can be problematic. Can you reach it with the hose?

• Incorporating lights or pumps (except solar-powered ones) requires proximity to an electrical outlet. No one wants an extension cord dragging across the lawn.

• If digging, call the national diggers’ hotline to get any underground utility lines marked.

• Will your water feature be in sun or shade? The amount of sunlight determines which plants you can use nearby.

*** If your water feature is intended for the dual benefit of you and the wildlife, avoid using chemicals to treat the water. Filtration systems are fine, but you’ll want to avoid pool chemicals.

Water features cancel unwanted noise

You may be surprised at this benefit. Water features that incorporate splashing or falling water create a soothing sound, but that sound can also be sufficient to block out noise from a nearby busy highway or business. While it won’t cancel out sirens (unless you have a big waterfall!), the gentle and consistent burbling or bubbling can help override the hum of traffic or mask the sounds from the parking lot over the fence, which leads us to our next benefit. 

Providing a positive mental boost

People are drawn to water. We spend our money and precious vacation time going to lakes, hiking alongside streams, or loafing at the beach, listening to the surf. A garden water feature combines our gardens with our ancient love for water. 

A simple container water garden or pond can add a calming vibe, and some garden water features are purposely designed to create sound, enhancing the overall experience. Sitting near a quiet fountain or a burbling backyard pond can help reduce stress and promote relaxation. A grassy, shady, flat spot nearby makes an excellent outdoor yoga pad. 

Place a bench or a comfy chair nearby, and create a relaxing spot to enjoy morning coffee or unwind in the evening. Even a small solar-powered fountain in a tub can add peaceful energy and increase your zen. If you meditate, try doing so next to a water feature in your garden. 

Water features are great for pollinators

Bees, moths, and butterflies also need water. They use it for hydration, nest building, and even regulating their body temperature. Butterflies are often found in any puddle or muddy spot, licking up the minerals and salts at the surface. A water feature with a shallow section and some small stones for perching can provide needed water for pollinators, encouraging them to stick around and do their work.

To make your water feature helpful for pollinators, it should have a shallow shelf and nearby native vegetation and flowers. A location that receives partial sun and partial shade is ideal. Even a small muddy spot (poke a hole in your irrigation hose with a needle) can provide pollinators with habitat benefits. 

Attract more wildlife

Creating a wild or rewilded spot in our yards is a perfect way to supply an island of sanctuary in an otherwise suburban landscape.  A water feature, whether a simple solar-powered fountain or an entire backyard pond with a waterfall, will bring more wildlife to your yard, from birds and dragonflies to squirrels, chipmunks, and visitors you’ll never see who come in the evening hours. A birdbath is a good attractor for songbirds, who not only use it to rinse off but also frequently take a drink. The squirrels in my yard also visit it frequently, lapping up some water between visits to the birdfeeder to see if I’ve replenished the sunflower seeds. 

Surround water features for wildlife with foliage and flowering plants of varying heights to provide security and cover. They’ll feel more at home and visit more often. A watering spot near some shrubs or trees offers perching and hiding spots. And, hummingbirds love a safe spot to take a drink.

To prevent an accidental small critter drowning, ensure there’s a spot to climb out if they slip and end up in the water. A shallow ledge or a stout stick at an angle leading out of the water can serve to prevent problems. 

A chance to grow different plants

Most of us don’t have a stream in our gardens, but adding a water feature, even just a large container, allows us to grow a much wider selection of plants than would ordinarily be available to us. Many plants thrive in wetter conditions, which can be created at the edge of water features. Some plants will grow right in the water. 

Plants that thrive directly in water, like water lilies, can be planted in even a small container-sized pond on the deck or patio. Small in-ground water features allow the planting of wet-loving plants that need moist soil to thrive. Try cannas, Japanese irises, and nasturtiums around the damp edge for a natural look. 

A mini-water garden can be created in minutes with a large galvanized tub or half-barrel, a few rocks, and a half-dozen water plants, and it can be located right next to your favorite chair on the deck. Add an inexpensive submersible fountain pump, and you’ve got a fountain, too.

Utilize hard-to-garden spaces

We all have them, those spaces that are a bit hard to garden in. It could be the corner made by the fence, a rocky spot, or a spot so shady nothing much will grow. That might be a perfect spot for a water feature. Water features and water gardens can be self-contained, so no soil is required, or they can incorporate a few containers of flowers if the soil is gravely or otherwise difficult.

Adding a bowl or half-barrel water feature with some brightly colored coleus is a great way to add color and the benefits of water to a shady corner where not much else will grow. Water features can transform dull spaces into dynamic, attractive spots. 

Bring in the frogs and toads (the bug eaters)

Toads in the garden are good friends, even if they sometimes startle us when we move a leaf and they hop off. They eat all sorts of problematic bugs, providing us with natural pest control, and a single toad can eat thousands of insects in a single summer. 

Toads and frogs like shady spots to rest in the heat of the day and moist environments. Keep water features intended for toad use shallow and shaded, with branches, foliage, or a shelter overhead for security from predators. 

Create a focal point or hidden secret spot

Water features can be the focal point of a garden, central to the design and drawing the eye from all directions. But they can also be a hidden spot tucked away under a trailing canopy of foliage. Coming around the corner to discover a small pool with a short cascade of water bubbling over a rock makes a magical spot. A two-tiered cascading design—one container flows into the other lower container—can be easily hidden to peek out from underneath a basket of spreading petunias and trailing vinca.

For potager gardens, a fountain or small, pond-style water feature can serve as the central design element to tie the outlying beds together. Many available self-standing fountains contain shallow areas to serve double duty as a birdbath. 

Whether small or large, simple or intricate, water features bring interest, beauty, and enjoyment to our gardens. And, of course, you can always add fish to torture the neighborhood cat.