Build a water garden. It is easy, fun and soothing, said Dan Wake, a local biological consultant and water garden enthusiast. It is so relaxing just hearing the water trickle. Wake's backyard pond, measuring 6 feet by 4 feet, is merely 10 inches deep. It is festooned with water plants and surrounded with bronze flax, rockrose and wild huckleberry.
Large rocks line the perimeter of the pond in a natural fashion.
Much of the water garden is landscaped with what most gardeners consider weeds in other situations. Wake's water garden hosts such plants as horse tail, wild huckleberry, clover and buttercup. On a warm sunny afternoon a silvery blue dragonfly hovers about a thick clump of California poppy and lupine. A soothing trickle of water pours from a bamboo spigot cloaked by a Japanese maple. I want a more natural-looking set up, and that's what I've gone for.