Later this week I’ll be on the Pond Blog talking a bit about some of the problems that can be encountered in building a waterfall into a pond (and how to avoid them), but today I thought I’d give another, lower-maintenance solution.

If you’re looking to make a water feature in a smaller area (such as in a front yard), it’s important to remember that smaller ponds can actually require more maintenance and work than large ponds, as there isn’t enough water to develop a self-regulating ecosystem in the pond. It is definitely worth looking into what exactly you want from your water feature. If you want the trickling joy of a waterfall or small stream, but fish and a lot of water plants aren’t important to you, a pondless waterfall could well be the lowest-maintenance, least expensive route to go.

With a pondless waterfall, you can have almost all of your limited space dedicated to the feature that’s most important to you (the fall itself), which means that you can have a much more impressive waterfall in less space. Your design options can become almost limitless in a very limited space and budget. Plus, with no ecosystem that needs to be maintained through steady aeration and water flow, it’s much easier to have the waterfall off for more extended periods, saving you electricity and water loss (though it is worth noting that the new, higher-efficiency Aquascape pumps use much less electricity than you might think).

If you think that a pondless waterfall might be for you, check out our Aquascape Micropondless Waterfall Kit. It’s inexpensive and efficient, giving you what you need to build and maintain a great pondless waterfall with the least investment of work and money.