no drought in these gardens

After liv­ing with drought for the last sev­eral years it’s refresh­ing to take a look at some gar­dens where water appears as an unlim­ited resource. Last weekend’s L.A. Times Home sec­tion fea­tured an arti­cle on iwagumi, the art of aquas­cap­ing. Take a Japan­ese gar­den aes­thetic, only apply it to a fish­tank, and you have a basic take on iwagumi.


Above: Luis Car­los Galar­raga, Sao Paulo Brazil, “When the rocks flow.” [ source ]

Each year the Aquatic Gar­den­ers Asso­ci­a­tion hosts a com­pe­ti­tion for pho­tographs of these care­fully planted tanks. (This year’s con­test dead­line is Sep­tem­ber 30.) Con­tes­tants have to apply the same design sense that they’d need to work with in a gar­den on land. But instead of the famil­iar plants of the ter­res­trial realm, they’re using aquatic species, most fre­quently plant­ing them among an assort­ment of strik­ing stones. In these gar­dens the del­i­cate crea­tures over­head aren’t birds, but fish.

The image above and the two below are medium-sized tanks from last year’s com­pe­ti­tion. Click on the “source” link and you’ll be taken to the page where you’ll see more images of each project, along with com­ments from the competition’s judges. It’s a very spe­cial­ized aes­thetic that they’re employ­ing in the scor­ing, but the com­ments are inter­est­ing to read with a grain of salt, and might give you ideas on how to play with plants and space in gar­dens that live on the other side of the water table.


Above: Mélisse Moireau, Sar­celles France, “Grass­land sun­set.” [ source ]


Above: Michal Paster­nak, Krakow Poland, “Sun­set.” [ source ]

Since we’re air-breathing crea­tures these tanks trans­port us to a realm where we nor­mally don’t have an oppor­tu­nity to look at in any detail. They remind me a lot of the pho­tog­ra­phy of Karen Glaser, a Chicago pho­tog­ra­pher that I had a chance to exhibit with a few years back in a group show here in town at the Museum of Pho­to­graphic Arts. Much of Karen’s work is taken under­wa­ter, in the oceans or in swamps. Her mag­i­cal, mys­te­ri­ous work is noth­ing like the clichés that make up most other under­wa­ter photography.


This image: Karen Glaser: Dust Storm in Cat­fish Sink, 2006, Pig­ment Print on Hah­nemühle Photo Rag, 37x25in.

Check out her web­site for lots more exam­ples of her beau­ti­ful work.

September 25 2009 05:35 am | Categories: art • gardening • landscape design | Tags: • • • • •

12 Responses to “no drought in these gardens”

  1. tina on 25 Sep 2009 at 6:56 am #

    Now aqua gar­dens is some­thing I could really get into. The drought thing just makes me not want to think about gar­den­ing. So far not so many drought issues in my neck of the coun­try. I think you do great in your area though.

  2. Gayle Madwin on 25 Sep 2009 at 9:02 am #

    I keep want­ing to gar­den in our three fish tanks, but the fish eat all my fish tank plants out of exis­tence within a few months.

  3. Helen on 25 Sep 2009 at 11:01 am #

    Thats a leap too far for me.

  4. BeWaterWise Rep on 30 Sep 2009 at 2:00 am #

    Excel­lent post! Water short­age is a grow­ing con­cern and places like South­ern Cal­i­for­nia are fac­ing fresh water short­ages. http://j.mp/19jEtW will show you how far the water reserve lev­els have declined in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. You will find a gauge on the site with three-color zones: Blue – good, Yel­low – not good and Red – bad. The nee­dle on this gauge is drop­ping out of the blue zone and head­ing into the yel­low zone. Hence we need to use water wisely in our daily activ­i­ties. It also has easy water-wise gar­den­ing tips!

  5. ryan on 02 Oct 2009 at 8:27 am #

    Very cool. Thanks for post­ing these. i hadn’t heard of the com­pe­ti­tion, but it makes per­fect sense. I was blown away the first time I saw a fish tank that was an under­wa­ter gar­den, I sat and stared for a long long time.

  6. Pomona Belvedere on 02 Oct 2009 at 10:21 am #

    These are so beau­ti­ful, I hadn’t seen these plant­i­ngs before, like lit­tle worlds and beau­ti­ful art at the same time. Very idea-provoking. And, since water plants in con­tain­ers are actu­ally water-saving, a place where we dry-climate peo­ple could get our water jol­lies with­out being wasteful.

  7. lostlandscape on 02 Oct 2009 at 7:46 pm #

    Ryan, grow­ing up we had the tacky fish­tank with the bub­bling deep sea diver and the trea­sure chest opens and closes as air is intro­duced inside it. These lit­tle aquas­capes are so much more amazing.

    Pomona, yes these tanks are all lit­tle worlds of their own and they don’t take much water at all, as you say. The ones I showed were 20 gal­lons or so–not a lot of water by aver­age water-use standards.

  8. tina on 03 Oct 2009 at 5:07 am #

    Hi James, I wanted to say a big con­grats on mak­ing the finals for best drought tol­er­ant blog. I’ve learned so much from you and hon­estly you never com­plain about water restric­tions and do such a good job of work­ing with your con­di­tions you would think there is noth­ing spe­cial about drought con­di­tions. If only it were so!

  9. Country Mouse on 06 Oct 2009 at 9:33 pm #

    Sure beats my brother’s pirate trea­sure and diver theme. These are mar­vels! Con­grats on your nom­i­na­tion indeed — well earned.

  10. Steve on 12 Oct 2009 at 3:19 am #

    Wow, James, those things are fas­ci­nat­ing. Great find! I am now a full fledged Ken­tuck­ian, by the way, com­plete with my recent bour­bon intake at a Louisville tail gate party! It’s work­ing out wonderfully.

  11. Brad B on 26 Oct 2009 at 10:00 am #

    My house­mate has an aquar­ium with all sorts of plants and algae grow­ing in the sand/gravel and on a large piece of wood. It’s very inter­est­ing to look at and to see how he “gar­dens,” cut­ting back, trans­plant­ing etc. I didn’t real­ize how artis­tic it could be. I’m for­ward­ing him the link. Oh and as he changes the water, a lit­tle bit each week, we use the old in the gar­den. The plants seem to like it.

  12. lostlandscape on 26 Oct 2009 at 9:00 pm #

    Tina and CM, thanks for the con­grats on the blog!

    Steve, best of luck with your new home! A dunk­ing booth with a vat of bour­bon might be the best Ken­tucky ini­ti­a­tion, but a tail­gate sounds like a good way to go too.

    Brad, we occa­sion­ally drain some water out of the out­door fish­pond. The nutri­ents def­i­nitely make the down­stream plants happy and it’s a chance to get fresher water into the pond. Maybe your house­mate will get some seri­ous inspi­ra­tion going and fill your place with mul­ti­ple land­scaped tanks…

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