Quality built, unique, creative water features is what Dragonfly Ponds has always been about. Our slogan is a bit of a mouthful but it really describes how we build our water features: Creating Creative Creations!
I started Dragonfly Ponds 18 years ago doing general landscaping and quickly realized that being excellent at all components of landscaping would be a huge challenge. We were pretty good but the learning curve was huge to be great at everything. After a couple of years the decision was made to focus on just one of the many different components of landscaping: water features.
The huge learning curve started and it continues to this day. Every repair and new feature we do, we try to figure out a way to do it better than the last one. My Favorite saying in regards to a landscaper trying to do it all is; you are only as good as your weakest link, the rest of your project could be perfect but the client usually only remembers where your inexperience was.
We try to make each of our water features a one-of-a-kind, unique creation. We hand pick our rock at quarries, so we can make those rocks look like water has been flowing over them forever. We always hand pick our 2 inch and above river rock, looking for those “Dinosaur eggs” so that they look like water has worn them round. Nothing worse than seeing blocky and broken rocks amongst water flow. Rock choice and placement is very important when it comes to creating those soothing water sounds.
We spend the extra time sealing up our waterfalls and stream effects so that the water has to go over the rocks (not under as well), this gives us the full water effect and allows us to use smaller energy efficient pumps. Those gurgling water sounds need to be created, too much water flow and all you get is spring run off sounds. Another important consideration in building a water feature is splashing water and how to keep the water in the feature. Planning needs to take place during the build to minimize water loss.
While the creativity of our features is very important, we have learned that the support structure underneath the liner is in fact the most important part of the water features longevity. Depending on the type of feature, we can spend as much time on the framework below the liner as above. Over the years we have learned how to make our water features rock solid. We have had to rebuild parts of projects we had done in the past that had issues and learned from our mistakes. We have also repaired hundreds of water features other people constructed, repaired them and figured out ways to do it better. After all these years we have gained pretty amazing knowledge of what works and what doesn’t, and how to do it right.
A huge benefit for our clients is, we build our pondless features so that we can actually clean the sludge out of them. It is amazing how much organic matter can accumulate every year in the bottom of a pond or pondless feature. If the organic matter is not removed regularly, the algae issues start. I have yet to see anybody out there doing this.
Dragonfly is also very proud of our non-leaking water features. Don’t get me wrong, we have been back to most of our features to find a leak, but that’s the point, we look after our clients. We actually build our own features (and repair other water features) in a way that we can find and fix leaks easily down the road. Leaks happen, whether it is the dog, bears, raccoons or us humans, they happen. The “it would look cool to dam this up a bit”, “honey, this solar light would look cool right here”, “crap, there is a bear in my pond” or “#$%@%# raccoons”, stuff happens. Designing a water feature for those unexpected problems saves a lot of frustration down the road. We tell our clients that they are part of the Dragonfly family and we will look after them. It is a huge family after 18 years, but we will get there as soon as we can to fix any issues.
