A Natural Backyard Retreat for All Seasons
Even when snow is falling, a backyard oasis can offer delightful daily escapes.
Once championed mainly for their ‘staycation’ appeal, such natural retreats have become popular for short daily escapes. Listening to the trickle of water while birds sing is an ideal way to escape technology and hyper-activity.
But did you know these escapes are equally enjoyable in winter — as well as in spring, summer, fall?
Note: The New York Times is reporting this week that there’s health benefits to such relaxing enjoyments. Spending time in nature, says the NY Times, “is good for your mind … [it] decreases stress, sharpens concentration and improves long-term mental health outcomes.”
Winter
Relax in Your Spa — While The Koi Hibernate
If you add a backyard koi pond as part of your retreat, it no doubt will include a small cave where the koi can lay dormant during winter months.
However, that does not mean you need to hide in your own indoor home-cave. Consider this home’s backyard oasis:
“Winter Wonderland” Backyard Oasis:
The clear, crisp winter air makes for extraordinary sunsets and starry nights — made all the more splendid with a vanishing edge pool or pond.
Under the stillness of one of our large multi-faceted water features (vanishing edge upper pond and lower pond, waterfalls, and a gentle stream) Deck and Patio’s outdoor living expert installed an extremely high tech and a complex natural biological filtration system that continuously maintains the feature’s crystal clear water.
Spring
The same Deck and Patio project shown immediately above is pictured below here in spring.
Photo: Backyard Water Features/Natural Biological Filtration:
An extremely high tech and complex natural biological filtration system maintains this feature’s crystal clear water all year long.
The same Deck and Patio project shown immediately above is pictured below here in spring.
Backyard Water Features/Natural Biological Filtration:
An extremely high tech and complex natural biological filtration system maintains this feature’s crystal clear water all year long.
Summer, Autumn
Again, the same project is a lush paradise when it’s easy being green.
In autumn, leaves from the trees fall into the water and are pushed along the stream where they are caught in a bed of gravel and are easy to remove, like emptying a skimmer basket in a pool.
Considering the energy efficient pumps, which only ramp up when the homeowners arrive home, as well as the fact that the system harvests rain water to help sustain its underground water reserve, it’s a project to delight the heart of any green enthusiast.
Multi-Functional Water Feature:
Every part of this water feature (summer view) has a reason and purpose and works together in an ecologically friendly way.
Project’s Biological Filtration System
This water feature project includes three bodies of water: two ponds at two levels, and a 3,000-gallon underground storage vault of water – all kept clear and clean with “biological filtration” through the use of beneficial bacteria, plants and other filter media.
The vanishing edge upper pond is raised in front of a bluff. Water spills from it into a delightful connecting meandering stream down to the lower pond located at the side of the house.
Water is pumped from the underground vault to both ponds through variable energy efficient speed pumps. In the upper pond, water enters from its floor. In the lower, it enters through a separate bog – a natural filtering system – and continues through a waterfall into that pond.
Except for what is pumped in from below, everything works through gravity along gradations that our team created in the landscape. Every part of the water feature has a reason and purpose and works together in an ecologically friendly way.
