How We Created The Water Garden

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

OUR "GARDEN OF WATER"

Our garden is located on the Karelian Isthmus. There are low places in it - this is a former swamp with a 1.5 meter layer of peat. Moreover, they make up most of the garden area. But there is also a sandy mountain. The total height difference in the garden is 4.5 meters. Somewhere in the lower third of this height is an aquifer in the soil.

All these features created a lot of difficulties in the development of the site, but they also made it possible to make it interesting.

Our garden is a year older than the six-year-old granddaughter, and the family needed it in order to raise the child in nature. I wanted it to be beautiful, so that the whole large family would like to be there. Fortunately, all adult family members have found points of application in the garden for their creative pursuits. The husband builds a bathhouse, a terrace and does all the work related to wood. The son-in-law is a great specialist in the creation of a water supply system, he also built a magnificent reservoir, his daughter is the main builder of paths and sites. My task is to make it all beautiful, organically fit into our complex landscape. I am responsible for everything related to plants and soil cultivation.

During the development of the site, many problems had to be solved, the most important of which was to turn the excess water on the site from trouble into good. Successive steps in land reclamation led to many mistakes, but now we can safely say that we know well how to solve similar problems in a similar situation.

It was possible to create a natural reservoir, excess waters of the site are collected in it, and then they are led out into a drainage ditch with the help of a stream. The water surface attracts the eye, soothes. The reservoir has become the main decorative dominant of our garden.

Its dimensions are fifteen square meters, which is enough for swimming for the whole family on hot summer days. Perhaps you will not find a description of the structure of our reservoir in any special edition. The steep peat walls (but not the bottom) of the reservoir are covered with a thick polyethylene film so that the peat does not come into contact with water and does not crumble. The film along the perimeter of the reservoir is pressed with a stone, and it is fixed on the vertical walls with a stone. The water comes from drainage ditches that have been laid across the site and collect mainly water from the iron-rich aquifer. Another source of water is the bottom of the reservoir. And since there is also peat, I had to put lutrasil on the bottom, on it - crushed stone, and on the crushed stone - again thick lutrasil, on which granite screenings were poured so that, while swimming in the reservoir, not to injure the legs with rubble

There were many problems, and not all of them were solved. For example, you will have to solve another one related to the reservoir. The water coming from the iron-bearing aquifer contains components that turn into an unpleasant gelatinous sediment that accumulates in huge quantities at the bottom and periodically floats to the surface. We will have to withdraw this part of the water entering the reservoir beyond its limits - into a bypass ditch. Until we figured out how best to bring it to life, last spring (to get rid of the accumulated rusty sediment) we had to pump out water from the reservoir twice.

In one of the issues of the magazine "Flora Price" in an article about a Japanese garden, when listing possible mottos and names of a favorite garden, the name "garden of water" was mentioned. This name sunk into the soul, and now ideas and thoughts are swarming in our heads. What if we continue to develop the theme of water in our garden? The arsenal of solutions can be endless - cascades, streams, grottoes, channels. And even in our conditions, small reservoirs are possible at different levels along the height of the site, since the aquifer is not in its lower part, but at a height of 1.5 meters higher. And in the highest part of the site, on a sandy mountain, you can make a reservoir using film. It is a pity that there is not enough information and knowledge in this area. We will search, read, invent.

I remember how persistently Igor Vasilyevich Pavlov (known to most gardeners in St. Petersburg) recommended at his lectures on landscape design to find everyone the secret motto of the garden, which would express its main idea. Now I understood the meaning of this advice better and completely agreed with it. After choosing your motto, you get rid of unnecessary trial and error, you have a clear and understandable goal. All that remains is to act without doubting.

How many interesting truths and discoveries await the enthusiastic gardener on the way to creating his garden! How interesting it is to grow plants from seeds, herbaceous perennials and annuals, shrubs, trees. My gardening experience has led me to the truth that the best way is to grow plants from seed in separate containers, not on a bed. This way you will never lose seeds, and the best conditions for development are created for plants.

I made many interesting discoveries in the general approach to building a garden. Without plant-free spaces, it is not interesting. In a young garden, it is necessary to quickly create verticals (with the help of vines, for example). The garden should have clear lines (fences, paths that do not merge with the green environment) and boundaries of individual spaces, this creates order and organization in the garden.

And also, the boundaries of the site and individual zones should be indicated by tall plants, this creates a background that is pleasing to the eye, it organizes the space.

You should not make the garden the same as that of others, it is better to listen to yourself, to the needs and preferences of your family. But the choice of such a solution should be preceded by the accumulation of knowledge on the basis of what he saw, read, heard. Until now, I do not consider myself ready for planning a garden on a slope, I have not yet accumulated information.

You should not create a garden from a huge number of different plants. It's best to find ones that do well in your garden environment, so they look good. To do this, it is better to try everything new in a wiring ridge. And if a plant dies in your garden, it may not be your plant, not for your garden.

What is my garden to me? This is my passion and way of being, a way of making friends, respect for loved ones and self-respect.