Family Dream Garden

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“Some people have a gift for numbers; some people have a talent for music. I like to think that God has given me a gift for rocks,” says Todd Runquist.

When Todd talks about rocks, he’s not talking about the kind of stones you can stuff in your pocket. Translate rocks as boulders, the kind of really big boulders that can dam up a stream and create a waterfall. And most often, when Todd employs his gift for working with these natural elements, he enjoys transforming the places where no rocks, let alone boulders, have gone before.

As a designer and builder of outdoor water gardens, Todd, who heads West Winds Earthscaping, is used to looking at a piece of flat ground and imagining rushing streams and cascading waterfalls. “Somehow I can see what isn’t there,” he says with a laugh.

In the 17 years he has been in business, Todd has created water features large and small throughout the St. Louis area, and his work has been featured in numerous publications. But the water feature that is closest to his heart is in his own backyard in Wildwood.

It began as a piece of flat ground adjacent to the ranch home Todd and his wife, Chris, purchased five years ago. A dog kennel was its only decoration.

What was once barren is now lush with evergreens, perennials, annuals, groundcover, vegetables, herbs and berries. Central to the landscape are two 20-by-30-foot ponds connected by a stream and a small waterfall. Todd designed both water features with the couple’s young children in mind. A ledge just 6 inches deep encircles both ponds and allows the children to sit and splash in the shallow water. The pond adjacent to a flagstone patio graduates to 1½ feet, and then 2½ feet, before achieving its final 3-foot depth. The connecting pond is 4 feet deep at its center.

Both ponds contain fish and aquatic plants that, combined with the  rocks and stream, act as a biological filter for the water. “We swim in our ponds every day during the summer,” Todd notes. “When the kids are older and adept swimmers, I’ll dredge out the bottom of the 4-foot-deep pond to a depth of 8 feet. Over time, the ponds will grow with the family.”

Currently, the shallower depths “allow for swimming lessons and interaction with fish, frogs, turtles and dragonflies,” Chris says. Her daughter loves to snorkel and pretend to be Ariel when she perches on the Little Mermaid-inspired bench-like rock her Dad installed under the waterfall.

As he does with his clients, Todd planned his family’s water feature to be enjoyed from inside the house as well as outdoors. “Every window inside the house is like a picture frame for the ponds. When I was creating the ponds, I was constantly getting off the tractor to come in the house to see how they would look through the windows. When the weather is nasty, you can be inside and still enjoy the outdoors,” he says.

“When I put in a pond I always like to talk with the people I’m working with to see what interests them. You have to evaluate the property. Where do they sit to enjoy their garden? Do they have kids? Is there a safety issue? I need to locate the focal points in the house. If you are going to invest in a pond, you want to be able to enjoy it year-round,” he adds.

Probably no customer of Todd’s has enjoyed their water feature more than Todd enjoys his own. Both he and Chris call it “a little oasis – a playground in the daytime and a retreat in the evening.”

“I love what I do,” Todd adds.
“I have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure I’m not dreaming.”