Indoor water

Winter is cruel to gardeners, they shrivel up like sun-dried tomatoes. Lips are cracked, fingernails are ragged, we long for a beach breeze, the balmy days of summer.

Is that why indoor water features are spreading like the "my doom" virus?

Trundle into a home or office and tally up the fountains, aquariums, water walls, gurgling rocks or full out ponds you see.

And sometimes you see them in the most unlikely places. At the new IT Centre at Mohawk College in Hamilton, a lovely indoor pond is front and centre in the e-library. Students are working full throttle at their high speed computer stations next to the pond stocked with fish and plants.

"The pond is the first thing you see when you come in," says Bill Curran, the design architect of the building, "It was located here for maximum impact."

Curran is passionate about connecting the inside to the outside, about reminding students "heavily attached to their computers" that there is a natural world.

On a bitterly cold day, an enormous wall of windows frame the wintry landscape, students are scattered among the workstations and the pond introduces movement, sound and living, breathing plants into the high tech centre.

"It seems to captivate people, to give them pause, it's a surprise to see a pond," says Curran.

Surprise is right, considering that landscape features are often the first to be cut from public building projects.

The pond or winter garden as it's called at Mohawk College, is small, about 10 by 15 feet. But it's layered with plants. Two bougainvilleas frame the pond, a large oleander is reflected in the water, a banana nestles in a pot at the water's edge, palms, begonias and ivy soften the stonework.

Neil Little from the college Support Services department looks after the plants. "It's lovely, it's a great feature, I think people find it fascinating." There are future plans to "upgrade the fish" and see if water lilies can survive in the pond, though the lack of direct sunlight may make that difficult.

Indoor ponds need a similar care regime to outside water features. Dead leaves need to be removed on a regular basis, floating plants that multiply quickly must be harvested, some aquatic plants may need regular fertilizing, and the pond may need to be topped up due to evaporation.

Howard Tucker of Water Arts in Etobicoke (416-239-5345) says if you have fish in your indoor pond, you'll need a biological filter. "Water is drawn through the filter by the pump, the filter cleans up the excess nutrients caused by the fish." He also recommends changing about one third of the water every so often, "so that the pond remains balanced."

Tucker has advised many customers on how to build and install indoor ponds. Most choose to work with the widely available Polyethylene ponds, which have guarantees of up to 15 years in an outdoor setting, and should last even longer indoors.

A four-foot round Polyethylene pond, a pump and a filter would cost between $600 and $1500 according to Tucker, and require very little maintenance.

At Mohawk College the pond is in a very busy place, with students and members of the public using the library, but so far it's been smooth sailing. The only challenge has been to keep coins out of the pond. "Since we put up signs that coins are harmful to fish, there hasn't been a problem," says Little.

"I think they respect it and see the value in the garden," says Curran. "We really tried to raise the bar architecturally and connect views to the outside, and with the movement and sound of the water, there is a spiritual benefit."