Written by J. Mitchell Brown
Photography by Donna Huffman

ust the other day I was sitting on the front porch of my little cottage sipping on a cocktail after putting in a couple of hours of some pretty intense physical labor (i.e. yard work). I had some guests coming in for the weekend who were to stay at my place, and I had to get everything in order before they arrived. The yard had not been mowed for some time and it was a wreck. The inside was no better because had the fellas over for cards earlier in the week. But I plowed through it all in record time and had the place looking respectable again, so I rewarded myself with a relaxing rum and coke in my wicker chair.

The day was a most pleasant one with spring temperatures and a glowing sunset. I listened to the biddies in my neighbors yard calling to one another and I could hear a boat racing down the May River. I took another sip and slid lower in the chair, my feet sticking way out in front of me. My dog curled up on the porch next to me and I heard her let out a long sigh of content. We were in our element.

I started doing what I do best when I’m in this zen-like state and let my mind wander to things that I can never comprehend. Things like... what changes oaks have seen in their three-hundred year reign, what Alljoy must have been like when my grandfather was a Future Farmer of America camper down there in the 1930s, how much water in gallons floods the May River twice every day. I never try to figure those things out in reality, per se, but I love to just imagine and let my mind float. The sound of trickling water began to make my eyelids heavy and I squirmed in my chair finding that perfect spot to be comfortable then I would inevitably ease into a cat-nap.

That same sound of trickling water woke me up ten minutes later, groggy but no worse for the wear. I noticed my now snoring dog had taken advantage of my siesta and had finished my rum and coke for me. That explained her snoring.

I sat up in my chair, careful to not disturb Mattie, who probably needed to “sleep it off,” and I looked at the little fountain I had bought as an impulse buy a few months ago. It was a little plaster thing, shaped like three stalks of bamboo with oyster shells all around the base. Water flowed up through the tallest bamboo shoot, went through an opening to the middle shoot, and on down through the shortest stalk until it danced around on top of the oyster shells, singing a little splashing melody the whole way down.

I was with my sister the day I bought it and I snatched it up on the way to the register. “What are you going to do with that?” She asked, rather incredulously.

I just shrugged my shoulders as the lady checked me out. I shelled out my thirty bucks and took my new fountain home with me. It has since been the best thirty bucks I’ve spent in a long time. I plugged that fountain up when I got home, filled her up with water and except for one time for a cleaning , it has never been unplugged. It just pumps and pumps and pumps. I didn’t want to admit it to my sister back then, but I was concerned I was just wasting my money buying a piece of junk. I have been pleasantly surprised.

But on this particular afternoon, with me in a total state of relaxation and a dog working on a hangover, I studied that fountain and it’s chorus and something occurred to me: it’s not the fountain I love. It’s the water coursing through it.

I read somewhere that 80% of the world’s population lives within a hour’s drive of water. That’s within sixty miles of a lake, river, or the sea. That’s seems about right too me. And if you figure it, that means there are something like five Billion (with a capital B) of us near water. I am very sensitive about the conservation of our land and do feel it necessary that each and every one of us, regardless of our origin, is responsible for the well being of our waterways. We come here for the beauty of the water. We need to make sure the beauty forever remains.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have the means to live on the water around Bluffton. But each of us can bring the calming and soothing effects of water to our backyard. And there is no need to spend gobs of money doing it. Garden fountains come in a variety of shapes and prices. You can spend thousands of dollars having a custom fountain constructed for you, or you can go to your local nursery and spend a couple of hundred, or you can get the same affect from a store-bought prepackaged plug-and-go fountain. After all, it’s not the fountain you’re admiring, it’s the water. Let’s face it, a fountain presenting a one-legged frog spitting water out of his mouth with an umbrella over his head would create the same affect as my bamboo fountain. Which would also create the same affect as if I had a crew of eight people come out and build me a one-of-a-kind water display. The fact is, when I close my eyes, the water is talking to me, but the fountain is gone.

Still water displays like reflecting pools are fascinating as well, but they are a lot more trouble to maintain. Mosses and fungi grow in still water – (as do mosquitoes) – faster and more prevalently than in a moving water fountain.

And if you want to get a fountain I probably should give you some sort of lecture about making sure you keep your fountain properly cleaned, but that would be way too hypocritical of me. My sister is a fanatic about cleaning her fountain. Granted it is a lot nicer and bigger than mine, but she is out there once a week with bleach and a scrub brush keeping that thing looking like it was new. I might, too, if I had a fountain as nice as hers, but mine has done fine with one leaf-removing session in eighteen months. I would caution you, though, that you need to be extra careful dealing with electric pumps and power cords around water. If you’re unsure what to do and how to do it safely, then don’t do it. (Don’t say you weren’t warned.)

Why wouldn’t we want to embrace water? Over three-quarters of our planet is covered by water. Water is essential to our local economy. Our fishing and shellfish industry and tourism industry is based on water. Our bodies and our gardens survive only in the presence of water. It calms, cleanses, and nourishes.

We plant these gardens to serve as a beautiful place for us to get away from it all. And a lot of times we take special care to hide water. We buy coiling stands for our water hoses and storage bins to keep our water nozzles and sprinklers in. It’s like we want to say, “See our beautiful garden? What? Water? No! We don’t need no stinkin’ water! These gardens are beautiful on their own!” But I wonder why we do that? We spend all this money on stepping stones and votive holders and painted pottery and garden gnomes. Why not make water a centerpiece in your garden? Why not put water on the pedestal it deserves and be rewarded with the musical and tranquil gifts that only water can give back to you?

I bought my bamboo fountain on a whim. I figured it would be something cutesy to fill a void corner in my garden. But as I sat there studying it, watching the water break into individual droplets then melding back together like some morphing thing right in front of my eyes…as it serenaded me with an endless song…it occurred to me that this water was not a visitor in my garden, it belonged. I was the visitor.