WATER & YOU: Are Ponds Your Path to Peace?

The day after 9/11, with the skies cleared of planes, Steve Shinholser sat with a client on a patio next to the first pond he had ever constructed.  With everyone going "kinda whacky in the head and reevaluating life,” this pond, with a beautiful waterfall and birds chirping, this respite created such a calming feeling that Shinholser made a commitment to learn to build ponds, beginning a new career building ponds and waterfalls.

Shinholser came to pond building after a lifetime in water – literally.  A competitive diver as a student at University of Maryland, Shinholser began working as a lifeguard, as a way to have access to pools where he could practice his dives.  Eventually, he built a company to manage more than 500 hotels, apartments, and community pools, with more than 3000 lifeguards (mostly teenagers), before starting his pond-building career, founding Premier Ponds.

For most of his clients, Shinholser works on ponds that have been installed by the owner or by landscapers who are not pond specialists.  With slow housing markets continuing across the country, homeowners are recognizing that they will be staying in their current homes for a long time – and see ponds as a way to turn those homes into a sanctuary.

xEach year, Shinholser and his clients hold a “Parade of Ponds” – a self-guided tour in which owners open their Pond Tours – sometimes referred to as a “Parade of Ponds” have become popular across the country, often hosted by pond builders and landscaping companies, with tickets supporting local charities.  The 2012 Parade of Ponds hosted by Shinholser’s company, Premier Ponds, included 24 Maryland homes in a self-guided tour.  Tour proceeds have been donated to a local organization supporting the homeless, called Shepherds Table (www.shepherdstable.org); over the past 3 years, $4500 in donations have been raised through this event.

Homeowners participating in the tour include Henrietta Hyatt-Knorr, who had originally constructed her own pond, later hiring Shinholser to help her when the pond became more than she could manage.  After she introduced water willow to her pond (an invasive plant species that killed off her other plants), she asked Shinholser to come back to rebuild the pond, adding a second pond connected with a waterfall.  She has raised Koi in the ponds, which also has attracted salamanders, tree frogs, a bull frog and other wildlife. Says Hyatt-Knorr, “It’s just heaven – it really is.”

Dave Maury, from Silver Spring, Maryland, is another participant in the Parade of Ponds.  He has a “pondless waterfall,” which is a pond in which the water lands on rocks, rather than a pool, and is then recirculated.  His pond falls roughly 45 feet in a series of 6 falls.  Maury notes that he moved the air conditioner on his house so that the noise would not disturb his enjoyment of the falls.

While people sometimes ask whether ponds are wasting water – especially in drier climates – Shinholser states that the ponds use less water than watering a lawn of the same size.  Water in the ponds is captured and recirculated, with new water added only for “makeup” of water lost from evaporation.

So what would it take for you to start your own water feature?  Shinholser noted that you can start with a simple vase with bubbling water for around $3500, up to a pond and waterfall all the plants, fish, lights.  He said a typical pond and waterfall starts around $8500, which Shinholser says means you “can have paradise in your back yard for the price of a mediocre used car."

To get started with the practicalities, Shinholser recommends that you should have a sense of how to work with the natural surroundings and how much maintenance the pond would need.

Some basic questions you would need to ask include things like how much space you have and what features you want to include.  For instance, Shinholser states the typical pond is 10 feet by 15 feet and has a depth of 2 feet. Want fish? Shinholser provides a formula within his  set of frequently-asked questions to help estimate how many the pond could accommodate; for example, the typical pond would hold about 24 fish that average 6 inches in length.

The larger consideration, however, is how to ensure you have a pond system with as little maintenance as possible "All we do is build ecosystems so that mother nature does all the heavy lifting you you do next to nothing,” he said.

The approach Sinholser takes to this replication is part of the Aquascape pond system method, in which he is certified.  Aquascape is an Illinois-based company established in 1990 that provides equipment and training ponds, rainwater harvesting and related products.  Aquascape also provides pond equipment and training videos available direct to the homeowners, including a "how-to video" on installing a "Patio Pond" - a complete self-contained pond system.

Whether you go with a smaller fountain or larger ponds and waterfalls, having your own water features to come home to can provide a welcome retreat from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life.  Says Shinholser, “When people come home from their crazy world to their side yard or back yard, filled with these sights and sounds, watching the movement of fish, creating such a relaxing, calming feeling, it really creates a lifestyle second to none.”