Building a Magical Stream Around a Hobbit House

So when everybody comes into the backyard they walk through this area. The sound was really important but really what's important to them is the visuals. This is going to be one of those features. We have to come back year after year after year and keep an eye on it and how it changes over time. Hey everybody thanks again for joining in to Team Aquascape. We opened this door and when I was on the consultation this was the first thing I saw. Like what a unique structure and then I saw this. I don't know what we'll call it the bubble dome but between those two structures, the fire pit, the little raised gardens, I just was super excited about the potential of this unique space. We often say we like to take unique spaces to their fullest potential and what could we do between the bubble dome and the hobbit house and we're going to show you. So what was challenging for me on this project was really how do I lay out pathways that need to come from the house bubble dome area from the gate to the hobbit house back to a fire pit and then still twist and turn a water feature in between all this. There's just a lot of pathways that have to happen and trying to get a stream and everything else in here was going to be difficult. I really wanted to see kind of a landing in front of that hobbit house. I wanted the pathway to be wide enough. So the design was the most challenging part for me but when it's challenging it's fun. Hey guys as you're watching this video make sure you check out the link below. It's the only time we've ever done it. We are doing a backyard makeover giveaway 100% free for you guys. You guys can win a backyard like this if not even nicer just by clicking the link below. Like, comment, subscribe and share. We'll be to your yard soon enough. Before we start that we got to get the team ready and get on the same page as myself and sometimes sharing the vision that's in between my two ears up in my head here is a difficult thing. You can see we brought in the whole fleet. We've got truck pulling machines. We got the dump trailer. We got everything. I said the design was difficult but really the logistics of sneaking that big machine into the backyard was going to be the toughest part. So we got to come down this side yard, stay off of the neighbor's property, pull out a gate and then twist around the corner without disrupting a lot of their yard. This took us about 45 minutes. The other difficult part about this job is really going to be how do we build it. In hindsight I think I would have done it different and started building the waterfall first and then worked my way all the way down to the reservoir. So getting everything prepped here, painting out the pathway. I really feel that if I can lay out the pathway first then it's easy for me to then manipulate the water around the pathway. What I'm doing here is really just kind of getting an idea of what's the circumference of this patio going to look like and I put, if you notice, I put two chairs in there and so a lot of times it's easier for me to put the furniture where it needs to go and then create the space around the furniture. Here I am digging the tank, pulling out all that. The other thing that's got to happen is all this soil has got to go. We can keep a little bit of it on site but the amount of soil I generate from a thousand gallon reservoir is going to be much more than what I need for the berm. Hey look at there, see the man in blue? He's not always on our job sites. That's Mr. Ed Ballou aka the pond professor. What a treat. So here we are putting the tank in. You guys have seen this before if you followed our channel. We're going to put about 30 aqua blocks in. We're double stacking them. We're going to put in our pump vault. We backfill everything with sand and then you can get the tank in. Then once I got the tank in then I can start building the waterfall on top of the tank. Now these are what I would call our puzzle pieces. The average person would call them just rocks, boulders, stones. These are our puzzle pieces. These I've got, I kind of personally selected all of these rocks with the idea of what style stream and waterfall we're going to build. Because there's not much of a grade change I didn't want big tall boulders. I wanted more pancake-y type size rocks and so notice most of the stones are you know 15 inches tall or less but it's because of that low meandering stream look. Here's Chris our customer running the boulders into the backyard and look at the smile on his face. He's like yeah I'm gonna do this. So we're gonna move all those rocks back one by one with that dingo. No other way to move them. I start setting them. I'm gonna put a big 50 inch bowl in right here. I think it'll just kind of add to the ambiance. Look at how set, how big the reservoir is. It's approximately 8 by 12 and nobody wants to see that big of a reservoir down on the bottom. By strategically placing those boulders and getting it to twist and turn I can shrink that reservoir down quite a bit. Now we move up to the rest of the stream just kind of placing the rocks. We're going to start at the waterfall and then like I said meet someplace in the middle. We got that bridge that's going to take us over to the hobbit house. We got a patio big enough. Got a couple chairs you're going to sit over there in the hobbit house. The bowls are set. We're going to come in here and kind of finish up some of this edge work in here then prep that later to get our stone chips down. Adding a little driftwood. One of the key things I like to do with driftwood and we'll go into an explanation here a little bit further but really make it look like it's been there forever. Here's Gavin and Chris just setting up our footings for our bridge. Got to make sure that that thing's nice and still. Really secure winter frost and things like that. We do choose to build these bridges out of tubular steel, one inch tubular steel, which allows us a really low profile when doing the bridge. Otherwise an eight foot bridge like this would have to be built out of a two by twelve and a two by twelve cut and curves would look really massive in this project and take away from a lot of the sight lines. I want to really be able to see that water come underneath the bridge. And so just getting the footings in making sure everything's going to be nice and secure. I think now would be a great time to talk about Jack's choice of workwear. The pink shorts, Jack, just absolutely loving what you're doing. You be you. I don't know if it's going to become a company outfit, but yeah, bring your own flair to every job. Here's Jack with his pink shorts just making sure everything's nice and level. We use a zip level for leveling everything. It just helps us set our elevations correctly, making sure that one side of the bridge is level with the other. The nice thing about a curved bridge, though, is that if one side of that bridge was an inch higher than the other side, nobody in the world would notice. If it was a flat bridge, you can tell that it's not level. With a curved bridge, you can't. So sometimes it actually really works to our advantage. Here's me just proving to myself and my family that I can still pick up some pretty big boulders. I will admit I didn't like doing it like I did when I was 18, but I did it. And now that I've proven I can still do it, I might not do it again for the rest of the summer. This rock, you know, really just making sure that the face of the rock looks good. This is where we call wing walls off of the side of waterfalls. You set up your frame rocks, the rock on the left and the right of the waterfall, and then you have these little wing walls that kind of help carry the berm work out further and further. And so the rest of this video is going to be us just doing detail work, coming down, scooping out stuff for the pathway, carving out for some bigger boulders to sit to the right and left of the bridge, and setting boulders next to bridges and stuff. I think it's always easiest to set the bridge first and then set your boulders. What you really don't want to do is set your boulders and then hope that the bridge fits in between. We really want to make it look like nature was here first and this man-made element came in later. And to do that, it looks so much better when the bridge looks like it was really just nestled in amongst the boulders and stuff. And so here you are just trying to twist this rock and get it on the right angle. And often think of it as like a jigsaw puzzle piece. Twist, turn it, flip it, rotate it, keep playing with that piece until it fits just right. And if it doesn't fit just right, try another piece. So here's Jack just making sure that thing's going to come nestle right in there. And then we're just going to start adding accent boulders. A big thing I really like to do on projects is always have more rock than I need. And the extra boulders tend to be bigger rocks, rocks that are 24 to 40 inches in size. And we set them in as accent boulders, trying to carry that rock theme out past the project. Setting some more driftwood. I wanted to complement some of the driftwood that was over there by the waterfall. And I want to notch this thing in to make it feel like it goes right underneath the bridge. So we're going to manipulate it a little bit, cut it off flat on the bottom, cut off a root or two, nestle that thing in, making it look like it's always been there. And the idea is more of this enchanted forest look. So I'm thinking way down the road. I'm thinking three, four years down the road at this point. But if I can add a couple of these old preserved driftwood stumps amongst the stream, it gives the appearance that these trees were here way before we were. And water eventually kind of killed them off. Here we're just going to do a crushed stone pathway. I like doing the crushed stone pathways. There's very little labor to it. We just got to dig out three to four inches. And I say just dig out loosely. It's kind of labor intensive digging it all out. But it's again, it's only three to four inches. It's not like I got to dig down a foot. Three to four inches of material for your pathway is going to be enough. We're going to come in, do some steel edging, put down some weed barrier. And then where it's really pretty easy is then you just dump the stuff right on top. You're not trying to level off pavers or flagstone pieces or anything else. It's one of those unnecessary but very necessary boulders. Just an accent boulder for no rhyme or reason. We've got this large pancake rock left over, too big to fit in the stream, but so necessary outside the stream just to help everything tie together. When you hike up and down a natural stream, you don't see boulders just in the middle, like just touching the water. You see boulders everywhere. So it's easier just to oversize the fabric, lay it all down, and then manipulate the steel edging to your curves. This steel edging was crazy hot. That's why I was folding everything with fabric. You can see the fabric protecting my knee there. And I got it wrapped around on the side because literally it was burning my hands. So what we'll do is just put in all the steel edging, framing on our curves, pounding that stuff down in place. We always use extra stakes just to make sure that stuff's not going to pop up with the freeze thaw. Get it really, really secure. And then we'll come in for our chips. And then we'll come in and cut that loose fabric that goes out past the perimeter of the pathway. I want to show you the whole thing flow. And so instead of filming the rest of it now, let's come back later and I'll show you the final reveal. Come on in. You guys, this is an awesome, awesome project. We're going to do this one a little different. I'm going to take you on the final walkthrough now that we're finished. But also, you guys see so many of our finished projects that are not landscaped. And so I'm going to kind of give you what's in my mind, plant-wise, more of a feeling that we were going for. And so we're going to take you on a tour and give you tons of plant ideas. So when I met with the Lin family, the thing that sold them right away was me saying one thing. I want to create kind of a stream, bably brook stream that goes through an enchanted forest. And when I said enchanted forest, I think it really connected with them because of the hobbit house they got going on over here. And I just thought, man, if we could make this thing look like a wooded stream coming through, it would look incredible. But to do that, it's all about the landscaping. So coming up with the layout was really quite easy. And the type of rock we were going to use and the bably brook stream, all pretty easy, but it's the plants that are going to make or break the entire feature. And we say that all the time. In fact, I tell so many of our customers, as much time as I spend carving every boulder into place and getting it to look just right, it's the plants that come in afterwards that are going to make or break the whole project. As you might've seen in our previous video, that's not yet landscape. So weeds are taken over and this one, we want to make sure we get things planted in here the right way before the weeds take over. So the first thing I would do in this one, we've got a waterfall that's facing towards the main part of the house, towards the really cool bubble over here, towards the kitchen window and really more importantly, towards the gate. So when everybody comes into the backyard, they walk through this area. So really to get them to focus on that, what I would do is put in something bigger in here, something that doesn't get giant, something that you can manage maybe to keep with that enchanted forest. Look, it could be like a weepy white pine could be a weeping Alaskan cedar. You could even do something like a smoke bush that kind of comes up into this height. But the idea is to fill this negative space right here. So your eyes zoom in on that waterfall. The other thing I would do, and this is really just a feeling thing, but if I'm standing here and I'm a tree, think of a ornamental type tree that would grow up someplace in that 15 to 20 foot range where you could actually walk underneath the canopy of a tree. Anytime you can walk underneath the canopy of a tree, you instantly feel better. Have you ever been to one of your kids' sporting events and there's the bleachers and there's the single tree at the sporting event? Where do all the parents go to? That space that creates that natural shade. And so creating that changes instantly the ambience. A lot of people wouldn't want to do a tree in this area because they would be worried about the trunk of the tree or the tree hiding viewing areas. But literally you're talking about the trunk of a tree being someplace in that four to five inch diameter. But think about that canopy coming. So maybe it's a paperbark maple. Maybe it's a Japanese lilac. Maybe it's a redbud. Something like that in here. I would love to do a flowering tree of sorts. So I would probably lean towards a redbud that would kind of come up and really fill this space. I also love the idea of those branches coming out. And as you're sitting in this bubble, looking at the canopy of that tree, not just the sun blaring down on you. It would really give that place some needed shade that it is really begging for. As we come through, the rest of these spaces are just going to be ground cover. So I would come in here and there's tons of different varieties of different sedums, different ground covers. But something really low in here that eventually is going to creep out just a little bit onto this pathway. But more importantly kind of hang over some of these boulders. We continue the journey. We see that bridge, right? And the bridge always has to have a destination. But not only does it take you from the house to the hobbit house. Pretty easy design. If I wanted to cut a stream through here, having something to traverse over to get into the hobbit house was important. So to keep with that enchanted forest thought, with the idea of all these different kind of ornamental trees coming in here and you walking underneath the canopy of stuff. Any enchanted forest I've ever been to also has some decaying trees or fallen trees or tree stumps. Brought these in to kind of look like it was a collection of old trees that had fallen down and here's the remaining stumps. We always see that kind of stuff as we're walking down and hiking through natural streams and waterfalls. Why not bring it here? So we did a couple here. We got one behind me. I think there's some stuff over over in the other area but it was one of those little tiny details that we wanted to add that gives us that last 10%. I also love using these bridges. Arced bridges aren't always my favorite but if I'm gonna use them, I love this one because it's built out of tubular steel. When you build it out of that one inch tubular steel, it keeps the profile really really low. Keeps it nice and sleek, allows you to see that water move underneath it and doesn't make the bridge such a focal point. So one of my favorite designs is when we can really hide the point of origin which is usually strategically done with landscaping. So where did the water come from? Trying to make it look like this thing was always here. Just as important as hiding the point of origin is hiding where it ends and this stream with having all these different twists and turns and kind of going with the natural topography of the yard makes it look like it could just be cutting through the property. The key is going to be again the proper landscaping. So you can see they've got a arborvitae sitting over here. I believe it's a green giant. That thing is going to get three times bigger and then you can see their little bird bath with the tree stump and the birdhouse up on top. I think a couple more arborvitaes in there really hiding that the rock just kind of disappears. This Japanese maple getting higher hides the fact that this thing really just ends where you guys are looking at it but with strategic landscaping gives it the illusion that it just keeps going and going. The only other thing we would add is just a couple more rocks to carry your eye that much further. On the back side of the waterfall here I love that we were able to use some of the Japanese maples that they already had kind of laying around in pots. So we have I believe it's an orangiella or something over here. This guy gets a little taller. I don't remember the name of this but this guy gets someplace in that 15 foot range. But to give these guys a little bit more definition I again would come in with an evergreen of sorts. Maybe it's a dwarf mugo pine which really doesn't stay dwarf still gets up in that four foot five foot range. Maybe it's a Japanese white pine but something that's just green softens up this fence behind you, pushes your eye towards the waterfall and then showcases these Japanese maples that much more. In the foreground anything that'll kind of creep and come over these rocks again. I think the easiest way to decorate this where we have the crushed stone coming right up to the edge of this would be any type of succulents. Succulents will grow in even the worst conditions possible. So you could come in here with some stone crop and it will actually grow and creep all over this rock. We intentionally left a lot of the soil on this rock with that being the intent. That plant just kind of creeping and growing in all of this will soften up this rock and really add some necessary green amongst the stream. Even coming over in the corners with just some container plants would really look good. So this is our 50 inch bowl that's been altered a little bit. Remember all these bowls were originally designed to be patio bowls. Just self-contained water features that sat on a patio. So if you didn't have the space or the allowance to do a big long meandering stream you could have a water feature just sit on a patio. Here we've altered it and what I mean by alter it we brought plumbing into the bottom of it and then notched out a spot here and notched out a spot here giving me two little distinct waterfalls coming out. We call them horsetail falls and we have three different size bowls. We have a 40 inch, we have a 50 and a 60. I think the 50 fits perfect in this setting but we've updated this one to be a filter as well. So below these cobbles here you can actually see a filter mat. So currently right now our 50 and 60 inch bowls don't have filter kits set up for them. We're still field testing them and figuring out the best way to do it but with the metalla mat in here and then this thing loaded with bio balls it turns into a giant filter. The other thing it does is it brings the bottom of this bowl up a little higher allowing me really easy to add different aquatic plants. When this bowl is brought to its fullest potential is when the whole thing gets planted with different aquatic plants but some irises, some elephant ears, some sweet flag, some water lettuce, some water hyacinth, a small water lily of sorts will really really finish this off. This is one of my favorite views of the entire thing with this lower waterfall and that it's just an incredible view. Again I think I would come in here if we're keeping with that enchanted forest look and do a tree. Maybe it's a blood good Japanese maple, maybe it's a north wind Japanese maple. Something that comes up 15-25 feet tall kind of softens this up. The trunk of the tree doesn't block the sight lines of everything but puts that needed shade that you would want in an enchanted forest. What's fun about this feature is again everything's designed towards the inside of the house. It's that meandering stream. We did have a little bit of grade change to work with so it made a lot of sense for this stream just to kind of end in a palmless tank down here. We went with an oversized tank so the tank is actually about 1,500 gallons making this entire feature winter running. They won't lose 1,500 gallons of water in the winter. They might lose about 500 to create these different ice castle formations which still leaves about a thousand gallons left over to keep things running running That was really important to them. The sound was really important but really what's important to them is the visuals. Being able to see it from the different rooms that they created over in here. This is going to be one of those features we have to come back year after year after year and keep an eye on it and how it evolves how it transitions and how it changes over time. It's definitely my favorite space and don't forget guys a space like this could be yours. Just follow the link below enter the contest. Remember we're doing that whole backyard makeover giveaway and a feature like this could easily be yours plus some. Landscape included everything else. You want a hobbit house? Maybe we can make that happen. My favorite part of this entire feature actually has nothing to do with what we did. It's this. I think the hobbit house is so cool. The stream and the bowl and the bridge are really just kind of the cherry on top of this already exquisite yard and it's just gonna get that much better. Hey you guys tell me your favorite part and don't forget to enter the contest. We'll see you next week where we do this once again.