Increased Income:

Incorporating a water feature into a design provides an edge over the competition. Adding the element of water is adding the second most important element on earth. It is the most important substance on earth for supporting life, second only to oxygen. Landscape designers charge $150 to $1,500 for designing a water feature. They can easily add thousands of dollars of additional revenue per year by doing so. Water features can quickly become your specialty or trademark, and a major source of extra income.

Increased Property Value

Professionally constructed water gardens or water features not only will increase the equity in a property, but they add unique charm and appeal for future buyers. Most neighborhoods in America consist of tract homes. Every fourth, fifth or sixth home is identical, the only differences being superficial in nature. The only distinguishing characteristics are accoutrements such as house trim and landscaping.

Over the past 25 years many of my water garden clients have discovered that the deciding factor in the sale of their home was their water feature. And just as important is the fact that their equity had increased seven or eight times what they had originally invested in their water feature. Their water garden had given them the advantage over other homes with similar square footage that had more ordinary landscaping.

Esthetic Value

With well over 1,900 water garden clients, I could not count the number of times I have heard them say that their water garden has brought them more long-term joy and pleasure than anything they have purchased in their life. They are providing powerful testimony to the calming, relaxing and alluring effects of a waterfall.

Educational Value

A water garden provides entertainment, education and emotional relaxation. It is a live ?Discovery Channel? in your back yard. Many people take vacations to travel to exotic tropical places like an island paradise or a far-away rain forest. Little do they realize that they could have some of the very same wildlife on their own property to enjoy every day!

Gathering Information

Whether you are looking for information on how to professionally build or maintain a water garden, waterfall or pond, or you are interested in designing your own personal waterfall, or you are interested in learning how to add digital designing to your existing water garden business; the internet is a good place to start.

Common Mistakes

Just keep in mind that there are thousands of websites touting rubber liner construction. Liner ponds are not necessarily the least expensive way to go. In most cases, unless they are installed properly, they will leak as a consequence of burrowing rats, mice, ground squirrels, chipmunks, gophers or tree roots; and heavy rocks or sharp objects.

There are only a couple of sources for digital design programs for designing water gardens. There are free DVD presentations available on training movies to teach the digital design of water gardens. There are resources for digital design software and digital libraries. You can Google ?Digitally Designed Ponds.? You can also get free and unbiased information and resources from askdoughoover.com (retired master waterfall builder).