Changing of the Garden: Water Garden vs Rock Garden

Well, it's the middle of winter, and gardening might not be the first thing on many of your minds. But more times than not, a great outdoor landscaping project starts right around this time of year, as savvy property owners start making their yard and garden plans for the spring.

In that forward thinking spirit, today's Home Improvement Showdown pits two popular styles of sophisticated gardens head to head, or petal to petal, as the case may be. In one corner is the water garden, or aquatic garden, and in the other corner is one of its elemental rivals, the rock garden.

Water Garden

If you're looking for comfort and serenity, it's hard to top the beauty and relaxing atmosphere created by a water garden. Though they tend to involve pretty elaborate designs, building a water garden may not be as challenging as you'd think, especially when you enlist the help of a professional garden landscaper. If you already have natural ponds or streams in your yards, all the easier! For a man-made pond, you can use a classy stone or brick to create a surrounding wall, and the pond itself can spring to life with the addition of water lilies, cattails, or popular water garden fauna like koi and goldfish. You can even have a fountain or miniature waterfall installed to add the soothing sound of flowing water to the experience. The only real downside to a water garden project, aside from the costs, is the upkeep necessary to keep the water clean and the plants and fish healthy. Food, chemicals, and cleaning agents aren't that pricey, but the costs can add up over the years. And for people in cold weather environments, you've got a load of other obstacles in the winter.

Rock Garden

Rock gardens are great ways to add character to your yard without the need for consistent upkeep or masterful gardening skills. Just ask my fellow blogger and SignatureForum cohort, Mia Hepburn. For all her knowledge of human aesthetics, she couldn't plant a beautiful flower bed to save her life. However, her friends still admire her Japanese rock garden, which she designed with a landscape contractor. These traditional Zen gardens include carefully placed stones in a flat area of sand and gravel, creating the look of lilies in the water, minus the lilies and water! Other Western types of rock gardens, or rockeries, do features some plant life interspersed among carefully laid out stones.

And the winner is. . .

The water garden. This is more of a personal preference, and it certainly requires more money and dedication, but if you've ever relaxed on a summer's day next to a pleasant pond, you know just how worthwhile a water garden design project can be.