water in the garden gives everything it gives the size as you can see the water glistening in the light it gives you the sound and the movement as well of course water is so good for a lot of the creatures that visit the garden there are many different types from spectacular fountains to Wildlife pools and ponds water really does bring something special in now one of my favorite natural water features that I see when you go for a walk when you're out in the countryside is a stream the lovely bubbling effect that sound that glisten of light on the water now that's what I want to create here and you may think to yourself creating a stream well it's a lot easier than you may think you do not need to have a massive Open Water Area for the stream to come down and you don't need a mountain where the rain has fallen and it drifts down I'm actually going to create in this space a pond free stream so I'm utilizing a lot of the natural materials around here and I'm going to create a stream to Cascade down and recycle the water back up so it looks as natural as possible the best way to start is to use in your garden any materials that are already there and when I say materials it can be anything from the slope of the ground that's going down as I've got here to some of the more established trees in this corner of the garden it's a bigger Garden so I I have a few more items in here than I would have if it was a small terraced area but if I've got a Terrace house and a small garden I can still create a stream within there as a very spectacular water feature now here I've got an old cherry tree here there's a horn beam behind and a very old Apple there I've got a natural slope as you can see just in this part and I think that's going to work particularly well I will be taking some soil from the front there to the back to give a little bit more of an angle as the water snakes its way down and that's it this spot here will have a pond free stream so the kids well it's very safe because there's no big Open Water spaces they can walk right right over it as well as producing lots of water and movement for the birds and wildlife in the area from here down to the bottom a really nice Pond free stream to get started I've got a market a take a look at this it's changed quickly already we've skimmed off the surface of the turf we've also dug out some areas certainly at the front there to to hold a lot of the water now all this material here the the turf and of course the soil here we will be reusing in and around the garden to create it into more of a Horticultural embellishment to look as natural as possible with our pond free stream it starts at the top and comes all the way down in here but we need a big body of water to be able to suck up and take to the top of the stream so it's constantly constantly trickling and feeding into into the bottom and this is the stump that we've uh we've all dug out it's quite a big area now I know I promise you it'll be a pond free stream and there wouldn't be any large open water masses so when the liner is in this I've got to put something that you can walk on so you wouldn't fall into it so it's very kids friendly now here I'm using the orazi Maxima blocks now this is a real clever bit of Kit and they're really tough you can walk on them you can in fact drive on them just take a look at that they are complete boxes with inner segments as well which makes them incredibly tough so that means water can be in and around and we can draw the water from from the from the crates themselves easily enough because it's one just big Mass nothing sealed here but it does enable us to walk on them so the liner will be down these will be inside the liner which means the the water body itself is completely safe and as I say you can walk all over it now this area here that I've cut out is what we're going to put an org inspection chamber in here now this is a pump chamber inspection chamber you put your pump inside and that means it it's protected so you don't get they can draw in the small slats around here that the water can be sucked in from you can see them just there there we go and it enables the pump to be free from the rest of the Water Mass of course being able to take the lid off and get your hand in and do whatever maintenance you need to do with the pump makes it so much easier and it's all about designing and putting something together that enables the pond to function and be very low maintenance or when you do need to do maintenance it's so easy to access and work of course we've now got to get the water from here up to the top and that's where we go on to the next stage now to get the water from the sump right the way up to the top of the stream we're actually using oasa one and a half inch spiral hose and it's a real professional bit of Kit um the spiraling enables it to not Kink and be incredibly tough as part of its design it will be sunk into the ground and it will last under the ground for years and years now an inch and a half is a bit of a big bore but it's going to move quite a lot of water from the bottom up to the top and if it's a smaller hose it reduces a lot more friction moving the water through so this way it's going to be a lot more economic in the transference of water and I'm thinking having a good proper hose is a worthwhile investment if you're putting them into your into your own garden of course this will be sunk into the ground and we'll suck up the water from here taking it up to the top now before we move on to the top I just want to show you what we're doing here we're actually digging in a trench like it's not going to end up quite like this but this is enough just to to put the liner into because you know in streams they don't sit on the surface of the of the ground you know all the good streams have actually cut away its own Gully way over a time for a little bit of erosion and gullies and nooks and crannies as the water has found itself coming right the way from the the top of the mountain the hillside back into the streams and and rivers and other waterways so we're actually cutting down a section here for the Lioness to sit into which I'm to enable us then with rocks and plants to make it look a lot more natural and remember of course this whole water feature is one body of water not two or three starts off at the bottom gets drawn up to the top and back in again and one piece of liner is going to do all of this now here is a really special bit of kit and if you're ever putting any water feature that Cascades water you really do want one of these this is a Spillway 15 000 and this little box will do an awful lot to begin with it's incredibly tough and it'll stand a lot of weight of rocks and boulders on the top of it so you can mask it itself so you don't see the uh the the shape of the the plastic you are in fact embellishing it but what it is doing is managing the flow of water or the spread of the water right at the top and that makes a big difference as this water's drawn up if you just left it with a hose going in between a few rocks it's splashing it's gushing it's spilling this way it gets spread in the mouth and evenly flows out to fall and wind its way down to the bottom and that makes an amazing difference that really helps your water management right at the top to flow perfectly all the way down to the bottom well there you have it we've still got to put all the liner in but we've got the sump to be able to hold the water the pump and of course the pump inspection chamber as well or the or the chamber to hold the pump to be able to protect the pump and draw the volume of water up then we can manage the flow of the water all the way back down now that's a lot of of clever management an awazi product that helps you achieve the ultimate goal easy to maintain perfect to flow beautiful practical and long lasting at the same time the hard job is going to be getting the liner because it's one piece to fill all of this into place but when that's down most of the water management will be done and then we're going to be adding in a lot of layers of landscaping rocks and sculptures to make this look like a beautiful water feature still a lot to be done this is one of my favorite bits to creating water features is actually putting the rocks in to stop it looking a little bit like liner and supporting materials than having a bit more natural materials in there's only one thing better than this of course and there's a horticulturalist I'm about to tell you it's putting the plants in but now the liner is in position you see all the way behind me here we've got one big liner that's going to hold the mass of the water now I have doubled up and put another liner along the outside to make sure all the water stays channeled in from the top all the way to the Bottom now it's a really good bit of Kit now this is the Aussie liner and it's well it's got a guarantee of about a decade and a half so you know when it's in it's in there for for some time so before the liner goes down we've put some underlay in there to protect the liner as it spreads out just in case there's any sharp Stones underneath now the maximum blocks are in position here they can really take some weight not just mine but also the stones that are on top so that's pretty good because again we're not going to have any open water you can walk over all of this now the pump chamber just in there look how easy that is to lift off the top and get access to the pump I'm also going to put a few Stones around the outside so you're not going to be able to see that and really starting from the bottom to work my way back up to the top some people start from the top some even in the middle I find it better to start at this end and there's going to be a mixture of these large stones and smaller stones and plants growing around because the secret is is to make it look as natural as possible and it's taking shape there's plenty of water already come down in the guise of the rain and now we've got to start moving heavy rocks with the rocks in position I need a way of securing them in place creating the illusion of a natural feature in the landscape but one that will last for years without washing away I created this by bedding both the large and small stones in awazi foam fix expanding foam safe for the Wildlife that might visit the stream the sprayable foam expands quickly and uniformly securing the stones and filling unwanted spaces in between unlike other expanding Foams the dark color of foam fix Blends in seamlessly with the natural Shadows created by the Stones effectively disappearing into the scheme of Pebbles and rocks I've just come inside now to take a look at the pump the heart really of the stream um and it's quite simple I've got a very high powered pump I've got the cable there 10 meters of cable that's going to make it easy for me to connect and I also have a little control unit as well that's going to help me regulate the flow and those things together are going to help me just get the stream right not too gushing not too trickly somewhere perfect in the middle and it's really worth investing in a very good pump you'd be better to have a bigger pump that you need and whatever water feature you're creating that you can regulate the flow down than buy a smaller pump because you can't regulate the flow up and here I've got an aquamax Eco classic C and the C stands for control panel which is incredibly useful these pumps are very flexible they can be used both submerged into a pond and also outside of a pond as long as that pond is a gravity fed filtration system let me just show you something up the front here and it's a beast five year guarantee with this 10 meters of cable as well this little baby or the weight of it can actually move 18 000 liters of water in just an hour and actually inside its pump cage and positioned either directly into the pond or into a chamber a pump chamber it works particularly well in drawing a lot of water through and using it however you wish to use I'm using this one for a stream but others for a big fountains or waterfalls or the like but if you do have a race Pond and you're keeping Koi carp and the like and you have got a a gravity fed filtration system this can work pretty well within that connection now the control box that goes with it is really clear it can work alongside your Bluetooth as well so you can regulate the flow of the water you can do it with a panel as well and all together it makes a really versatile pump to move fair amount of water but can be used both under the water and out of the water it's always a special moment when the pump comes out from the workshop getting ready to put into the to the water feature and just here with a very special moment because all the hard landscape in the rocks of stone the liners the reservoir the spillway at the top is all holding its breath ready to be connected for the water to flow and guess what so am I I just can't wait uh as you can see the shape has worked out incredibly well we found some of these Stones just under where I've got a snowberry over there that must have been there for for ages and the Moss has grown on them so we've used one as a sort of plateau there it's choosing the right stones with it with it with the flat tops that'll give us a perfect even flow of water from the top all the way down to the bottom and I think the tearing really works because we want a bit of you know a bit of bubbling a little bit of splashing a bit of flow a bit of animation and that well that's the art of water as it moves creating a a beautiful Stream So if you remember we've got a pipe that's running from the reservoir here right the way up to the spillway at the top the spillway is going to help us spread the water as it comes out the very beginning and I told you it was tough because there's a massive piece of stone with lots of gold gorgeous Moss at the top and the pipe work is an example of a bit of it is buried underneath the ground right the way up to the top and it's been connected onto the spillway there and that end of the stream is ready to go now this end here I've got to put the pump into the pump chamber and then connect it up but the pump Chambers worked out really well you know I mean take a look at this lovely just in the inspection lid there and see how well that's tucked in look at that how you would be able to get hold of a pump if it didn't have one of these incredibly clever uh awazi pump chamber so I can literally drop the pump in there I'm going to connect it in a minute but I just want to show you and then when it's all finished just cover it up and a few Stones over the top you never know that it's there but when you need to get access to the pump how easy is that to be able to get that into it again now also the control panel I put it here for the time being there's plenty of cable which is great because by the time we start putting the plants around the outside and maybe move some more of the hard Landscaping I'll be able to move it just to the position that's perfect that's out of sight but easily accessible as well so the moment of truth connects up the uh the pump and we'll press the button and see what it looks like right here we go the moment of truth and if you remember I said there was an app to be able to work the uh the pump and there we go press the button I can hear it starting come on here we go it's just for oh look at this well that's a lovely flow that's why it's where the spillway is really worth putting into place because it's not gushing One Singular direction of as a hose would do it's actually splaying the water out oh that's beautiful that is lovely there's a little bit of cloudiness in the water further down but don't forget it's washing off some of the mud with the stones and it has been um shall we say some unpredictable weather whilst we've been putting it into place and that'll settle down as it goes but there we are that beautiful sound of trickling water it's it's just so tranquil now there will be a little bit of movement of some of the stones and the Rocks as the water sort of like I don't know beds its way into gullies and streams and we've got quite a bit of cutting left to do with the liner around the outside and tucking it into this soil a little bit of trimming of some of the foam that we've used and then we're going to bring in tons of soil really to to Mound up either side because we want it to appear as if it's a gully way that has cut its way through the Earth as a natural uh Source or a natural spring for the water to flow out into the rivers and then into the sea that's the the natural effect of our stream and then of course we've got all the fun bit the planting around the outside but for the moment that's breathtaking isn't that beautiful now we've added in about four tonne of soil just around the outside because we don't want it to look like the stream is sitting on the surface of the ground we want it to feel really natural like it's a gully Waze if it's been cut through the Earth as the way the water comes from the mountain or the hills and runs out to the uh to the to the rivers so that's why we've built it up on either side and you may also notice we've now taken the Rocks not only lining the the pond itself but also coming out so we don't want the stones just in the center like this we want the answer to feel as if they're part of a wider landscape so that's why we've put some of the stones in and around the outside and we'll be using those as a foil to plant for Ferns and you know a few creeping plants around the outside or just at the foreground of some more spectacular shrubs now we've also added in a little bit of lighting which is going to really set the mood and atmosphere in the late evening things so I've used the they're very special there was a loon Aqua power and what they do is they'll be uplighting this big tree here because it's very dominant in association with the stream itself and we've also put a couple of Lights actually in the water to create a real moon as the water flows over the top of it in the late evening it's going to look absolutely spectacular so we're going to let it settle for a bit now let the rain get on it and just get get comfortable in itself because the soil will settle down and it'll be perfectly ready for us to add the plants the final icing on the cake should we say to make our beautiful pondless stream look as if it's part of nature now it's been a few weeks and with that the the streams really matured you can see a lot of algae uh that's growing on the stones so it's looking really really much more natural and we've grouped the stones where they were either side we've grouped them to have more of a dominant uh um effect which I think looks a lot more natural and what I want to achieve with the plants I'm only standing them into into position at the moment it's almost a corridor either side of the stream as it would naturally be growing accessing the stream uh for a source of moisture out in more Wilder conditions and there's a combination of natural plants like ferns I'm using lots of different varieties of ferns some green some dwarf some bronze some euphorbias in here as well they'll work well certainly with a little bit of the uh the partial shade from the trees and fox gloves at the back do you know the bees have already been around them they're loving them a big big cornice at the back because I want it to feel very natural rather than just in the middle of the lawn area and then I'm bringing the lawn either side up to to the edge but they've all got to go in you never know whether they work or not in their positions until they've been bedded in properly so we'll take a look a bit later on so there you have it when the planting is in place it really does make it feel like a natural stream flowing out into the countryside mixed in with natural plantings of Fox Glove and twisted Hazel and cornice and the Tranquil sound of the water goes a long way in making this perfect self-contained natural garden stream for more information just visit awazi.com
2022-08-04