The pond at City Serenity, with lily pads, a white water lily, and orange flowers along the rock edge.
Some backyards are a lawn with a patio. Laura Beth Fox built something else in Michigan. She calls it "our private little park in the middle of the city," and she means it literally. "When you step onto our deck you forget you are anywhere near an urban environment."
The yard is in Zone 5, and it is built around water. A stream runs down the slope, through the yard, over seven waterfalls, under a stone bridge, and into a pond at the bottom. Ferns, flowers, and ornamental trees fill the corners around it.
Start with a slope most people would fight
Laura is clear about what they started with: "a slope, a rotten, broken down fence, a few ferns, a lot of weeds and soil like dust." Instead of flattening that slope, they let it do the work. A slope is what makes a stream possible. Water can fall, move, and sound like water, instead of sitting still in a flat basin.
That is the idea worth copying, even at a smaller size. If your yard already drops in one direction, that drop is not just a mowing problem. It is a ready made course for a small stream or a short waterfall into a pond, and November is a good month to walk it and mark where the water would go before spring projects start.
The hard part was getting everything in
There is no easy access story here. Laura writes: "Every rock, every board, every plant, every stone, every yard of pea gravel and mulch had to be carried in on our shoulders or in buckets, through the gate, across the deck and down the steps."
Anyone planning stone or water work should hear that first. The finished photos look calm. The build was buckets and shoulders. Plan how material gets in before you order it, keep stones to a size one or two people can carry safely, and stage work so you are not hauling across finished planting. Laura's own verdict is simple: "We think we've done alright for a couple of girls."
A blue jay splashing in the shallow stream at City Serenity.
Built for the creatures that show up
The pond holds a bright Japanese Wakin goldfish, and northern green frogs sit on the big stones around the edge, in Laura's words. Four or five pure white water lilies rest on the surface in summer. Then there are the birds. She lists sparrows, robins, cardinals, black capped chickadees, and "big ol' blue jays" bathing in the stream or at the edge of the pond, and the photos back her up, right down to a blue jay mid splash in the shallows.
Visitors noticed the same calm. One wrote, "Absolutely beautiful! I loved looking at all the pictures! It's amazing what you have done to your yard!" Another, Lynn, called it "a beautiful yard... oasis" and wrote, "Speechless! What a beautiful yard."
Laura also says the deck sits in shade, and that the near constant breeze keeps this oasis, in her words, "10 degrees cooler than the city streets." You can sit on the bridge and cool your feet in the stream, or sit on the lower deck and wait with a camera.
A northern green frog on a rock at the edge of the pond, just as Laura describes.
Why look at this yard in November
In a Michigan Zone 5 yard in November, the lilies are done and most flowers are gone. What is left is the part that carries this yard anyway: the slope, the stone, the bridge, the pond edge, and the trees and ferns around them. That is a useful thing to study right now.
Three things to borrow from City Serenity:
- Use the slope you have. Let a drop in the yard set the course for water, steps, or terraced planting instead of trying to erase it.
- Plan the carry in. If rock, gravel, and mulch have to come through a gate and across a deck, size and stage the job for that route from the start.
- Give water a shallow edge. Birds bathe and frogs settle where the water meets stone gently, not only where it is deep.
See more like it
- Laura's yard, all 60 photos: City Serenity
- Water ideas for a backyard: water feature ideas
- Ponds big and small: pond ideas
- Cold climate yards like this one: Zone 5 yards