Party in the Front
Over-Water Experience
Playing It Koi
Useful Decoration
Plumbing Optional
Sounds about Right
Triple Duty
DIY Fountain
The soft splash of a fountain brings life and motion to the backyard. It attracts more birds than still water alone, and its soothing sound track transforms your space into a peaceful retreat.
We built the fountain pictured here for about $160 (not including stones), using two glazed pots (a shallow bowl nests snugly inside the larger pot), a bucket, and a small recirculating pump.
Cool Water
Private Spa Retreat
Well chosen accent pieces can help turn a tiny urban garden into a tranquil space. Here, a fountain acts as a visual transition between two areas of the yard. Its spherical shape is echoed by a trio of orbs on the deck.
Mission-Style Stream
A shallow stream neatly bisects this San Luis Obispo backyard and cascades over a stone wall into a pool. Kangaroo paw adds a touch of drama to the palette of olive and gray-greens.
Perfectly Simple
To give this small fountain more presence, the designer created a mini garden around it using billowy grasses, fleshy succulents, and showy orchids.
Spanish Details
Pathway Focal Point
Stylish Noise Muffler
This garden is about two blocks from a freeway, but the owners hardly notice the sound thanks to their burbling fountain.
Urn of Stone
Water spills from an antique French stone urn into a rectangular pool and a narrow, 18-inch-deep channel in this San Clemente, Calif., garden. A pump recirculates the water.
The design, a joint effort of Larry Steinle, a Laguna Beach landscape architect, and Lew Whitney, chairman of Roger's Gardens in Corona del Mar, is the focal point of a garden corner that invites quiet contemplation. Scented geraniums and other foliage plants grow nearby.
Small Wonder
Oil Jar Classic
Big Bowl Fountain
This rough-textured pot would look as appropriate in an ancient village square in Italy, Greece, or Spain as it does in this garden owned by Robert and Carolyn Volk of San Marino, Calif.
Water recirculates through a pump placed in a fiberglass pond liner beneath the pot; stones cover the liner. The pot is from Al's Garden Art in South El Monte, California. Design by Mark Bartos, BEM Design Group, South
Steel Fountain
Heath ceramic tile and a green stucco wall mingle with a Cor-ten steel fountain and recycled-wood fencing in this eco-minded house in San Francisco.
Calming Wall Fountain
Splashy Wall Fountain
A two-level fountain adds a lively splash to the shady part of this Denver backyard. Water spouts from the mouth of a cast-stone ram's head into a shell-like bowl before spilling into the crescent-shaped basin below.
The fountain appears to extend from a 6-foot-tall dry-stacked stone wall. Actually, the stone is an artful façade that covers a conventional brick wall just behind.
Small-Scale Water Features
Rustic fountains help make Mediterranean-style plantings look at home among California's golden hills. Because water is a precious resource, using it respectfully in the garden is a tradition. Something lavish would have been out of character in this drought-tolerant landscape.
Scotts Valley, California: South of the Border
Against a rustic stucco wall, water trickles out of scalloped bowls into a colorful blue fountain bedecked with blazing bougainvillea.
Although it seems like a scene from a remote Mexican village, this 430-square-foot townhouse garden is actually located at the base of the mountains west of Silicon Valley.
Fountain in Front
This fountain in a small front yard was designed to be enjoyed from the porch. "We love being out in the garden," says owner Marie De Lorenzo of Venice, Calif., "But looking out at it from indoors is almost as good."
A Fountain Without Water
Falling Water
Water Wisdom
Water recirculates through a fountain in the back of this drought-tolerant garden in Clovis, Calif. Around its base are planted unthirsty plants like acacia, chitalpa, and redbud.
Perfectly Crafted
Essential Element
Water is an essential element of a garden, says designer Maria del Carmen Calvo. "I've created a garden where I'm never far from its sound," she says.
Though Calvo's garden is not large, she has included seven fountains, most of her own design. Here, pots of purple fountain grass flank a gate leading to a cherub fountain in a charming outdoor room.
A Butterfly-Friendly Fountain
Multitiered raised beds and house walls protect this courtyard from breezes. The fountain in the center provides butterflies with a necessary supply of water. (After spilling down the column, it moistens the rocks below before disappearing underground; siphoning water from a puddle beneath wet rocks is a butterfly's preferred way to drink.)
Water-Wise Patio
A large ceramic urn catches water pumped through a partition to create a simple trickle fountain. The inviting side yard acts as an outdoor extension of a family room.
Mediterranean Accent
A cast limestone fountain with an antique finish adds a Mediterranean-inspired accent to this narrow front patio in Sacramento, Calif. The wall blocks the sight and sound of street traffic nearby.