Ultra Outdoors
When summer is at its hottest, it’s difficult to decide whether you would feel cooler inside where there is shade, or outside where there is fresh air and a slight breeze. Not to mention you want to make the most of the gorgeous weather instead of looking at it through a window. The best compromise is to sit outside in the shade while enjoying a water feature in your garden; working together, water and shade have a cooling effect in your garden, so you can make the most of the outdoors without making a fountain from your own sweat. Here are a few water features you should add to your garden.
Add A Pond To Your Yard
Nature lovers might enjoy having a pond in their garden. Not only is it a great project for everyone to get involved, but ponds are very helpful for preserving wildlife. Once you’ve built a pond step-by-step, be prepared for animals to move in at an astonishing speed. A pond also enables you to use fewer pesticides in your lawn maintenance. The sludge collected by your pond filter (which is filled with nutrients from fish droppings, excess fish food, and decaying leaves) is a natural fertilizer that can be used to feed your landscape. If you have a little more space in your backyard, then maybe you should think bigger than a pond; a lake. It’s basically just a much larger pond, but you would get just as much use out of it as the wildlife. You could build a small waterfront structure on the edge, like a pier, and read, or you could enjoy some casual fishing when the weather is nice. If you want your little lake to function as a fishing hole, you need to make sure you achieve the perfect ratio of predator to prey.
Add A Pool To Your Yard
One of the best reasons to have a water feature is to cool off in hot weather. If you really want to use water to get cool, you’re better off building a swimming pool. Not only will this increase the value of your property, but it will make you really popular with the kids and the whole family. In addition to helping you relax and keep cool in the summer, a swimming pool is great exercise for the whole family; it’s a low-impact, yet high cardio workout, with maximum benefits for your heart, lungs and circulation.
Add A Fountain to Your Garden
The truth is the aforementioned water features require a lot of maintenance. If you’re not looking for a feature that adds to your list of chores, you’ll be happier with a water fountain. Simple wall fountains, huge cascading waterfalls, and other pondless water features are also great choices; the water in these features essentially re-circulates, so they don’t use much water and or grow much bacteria, which means they also pose less of a health and safety risk with small children. There are a wide range of fountains to suit all tastes and budget; stone, classic tiers, statues, or even wishing-well themes.
