We looked at a few books on water gardens and all the plans were beautiful. They were also very expensive, what with special liners, or cement, submersible pumps and exotic plants. Still, we really wanted a water garden of some kind but one we could afford. There had to be another way.
We live in a small travel trailer on five acres, at 6300', in the mountains of northern Arizona. When we moved in (4/13/91) the ground in front of the trailer had two scrubby junipers and bare, dusty, barren ground between them. That was where we decided to have a water garden.
The first year all we did was pile up some rocks where we wanted a small water fall to be and dig a small hole (5' diam.) in front of it. We kept the hole full of water by hand filling it several times a day. At first we couldn't keep water in it for more than a few hours. The more we kept it full though the longer it began to hold it. The high clay content of our soil helped but it wasn't too long before I got tired of filling it, by hand, over and over.
We acquired a 6' wide by 2' deep cattle watering tank. It held about 250 gals. At about the same time we got our well drilled. We had no electricity to run a pump so we had the well set up to run on a 5 hp gas engine. I would run the well once a day and fill up the tank and let the water run through a hose to the water fall at a rate that would take 24 hrs to empty the tank.
After a time, the pool was sealed enough that it overflowed and made a little stream that flowed slowly down the gentle slope. At first it would go a little way and just be absorbed. Eventually the ground became wet enough for the stream to reach about 20' from the first pool. I dug another one, a little larger. I figured this 20' of wet ground would become the 'bog' part of the garden.
When the second pool started holding water, I planted a 2' willow that someone had given us and we had rooted in a pail of water. When I piled the rocks to make the water fall, I purposely left pockets between them that I filled with good soil. We planted these pockets with Tiger Lilies. Thus ended the second year.
There is a natural stream about a mile down the hill from our place. In the spring of our third year we dug some plugs of some interesting plants from the banks of the stream. We then replanted them next to our stream, most survived, some didn't.
Things started growing that we KNEW we had not planted. My theory is that if you create the right environment, seeds blown by the wind, carried by birds or whatever will find it and grow. We saw five different kinds of grasses, cattails, unknown willows and cottonwoods we had not planted. And more were to come.
In April of this year, 1997, will be our sixth gardening season on the land. I only have to run the well every other day to fill the pools and keep all lush and green. The willow we planted four years ago is 12' high and we have placed a large flat rock under it to sit on and meditate. One of the 'invader' willows is taller still. There are at twice as many types of plants that came here on their own as there are ones that we planted.
BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME
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