Greg Wittstock, The Pond Guy, recently toured several properties designed by our Grounds Keeper team. Come along with us to see how people across Monmouth County are living the Aquascape lifestyle, and let it feed your imagination!
Watch our other Aquascape videos:
Cloudy With A Chance Of Water Features! A Rainy Day Tour Of The Aquascape Lifestyle.
Water Features Everywhere! Take A Tour Of The Aquascape Lifestyle
True Love Is A Water Feature! Tour The Back Yard Dreams Of These Two Families
Three properties are highlighted in this video tour. We’ve noted a few of the highlights here, and you can watch the full tour in the video. All of these families enjoy the Aquascape lifestyle with multiple water features. Which parts inspire you the most?
Vignette 1: Midge & John
What happens when you combine an apple orchard that produces 30 varieties of apples with a back yard bus company? The perfect place for a natural ecosystem pond, of course!
That may sound like an unlikely combination, but for Midge and John Huser, it’s just how they live the Aquascape lifestyle. For more than 15 years they’ve enjoyed multiple water features surrounded by a naturalistic garden, with a special boulder seat that’s just for Midge to sit and feed her hungry koi.
The moment she approaches the pond, they dart toward her in an enthusiastic swirl of bright colors, and await their treats. Afterwards, they can escape to one of their underwater fish caves or enjoy a bit of play time with their friends.
With underwater lighting, stepping stones across the water, and viewing spots from around the pond, it’s the perfect place for the family to get some respite from their 200-acre farm.
“It’s a very busy place here,” Midge says. “So this provides so much serenity and peace for us.”
Vignette 2: Nick & Anthony (4:09)
Anthony has been working for Grounds Keeper for four years, and in that time he’s learned the ins and outs of pond building. He’s always wanted a pond of his own, and finally had the chance to build one.
Together with his brother Nick, and Grounds Keeper pond veteran Michael, they spent two weeks creating a pond paradise behind his family’s home. What started with a standard Aquascape 11×16 pond kit ended up spanning the full length of the house with a waterfall, stream, bridge stone over the pond to a fire pit, and pond-side seating for pure lily-gazing bliss.
The pond had just recently been completed when Greg visited, so it’s a great example of a pond in its infancy, before the water lilies have filled in, before the grasses have reached their full height. Over the course of spring and summer, the surrounding gardens will bloom and thrive, and Anthony plans to add fish.
In the meantime, the entire family can enjoy sitting on the deck or patio overlooking the pond.
Vignette 3: Pam & Tom (8:48)
Welcome to a certified wildlife habitat! It’s a stretch of naturalistic wonder that you can only reach though a gate, across the yard, through a second gate, past a shed, down a natural stepping stone path, beneath an arbor, until finally you enter a stunning secret garden.
“People say it’s like a park,” Pam says, and it truly is. With bamboo for privacy, natural stepping stone pathways, a masonry fire pit, gazebo, multiple water features including a pond and tall bubbling urns, a zen garden, and multiple benches and seating areas, you can choose the scene you like best and spend some time enjoying this incredible space.
What was once an overgrown meadow, according to Pam, is now a wildlife retreat that she visits every day. She’s even got trail cams to keep an eye on a mother and her two baby deer.
It’s a different world,” says Tom. “You come back here and whatever was back there is not here. And the water makes a huge difference. If you think about taking that away, you miss the sound, you miss the motion.”
Tom and Pam have been in their home for over 30 years and they keep adding new water elements as they go along.
If you’ve enjoyed touring these properties, it might be time to start thinking about how you can create your own back yard paradise. Contact us for a consultation and we’ll work with you to plan the outdoor space of your dreams.
