Aquatic features highlight 'water-wise' yard

By BRAD STAGER | Special correspondent Published: October 17, 2012 Updated: October 17, 2012 - 12:00 AM

You might hear Maryhelen Zopfi's yard before you see it.

It's the sound of water cascading down a homemade waterfall into a 5,000-gallon pond, where dozens of Cheerios-eating koi swim and splash about.

The stream begins its tumble above her privacy fence at 1909 N. Mobile Villa, in a shady Lutz neighborhood.

The pond and other landscaping features earned Zopfi recognition as Hillsborough County's "water-wise homeowner" for 2012. The award recognizes people and businesses using water-conservation strategies in landscaping.

Emphasizing substantial aquatic features might seem at odds with an award promoting water conservation. But Zopfi's yard shows what can be accomplished by carefully managing water when establishing and maintaining a home's landscape rather than doing without.

The pond in the front yard, where Zopfi has created what she refers to as her "subtropical rainforest," is the smaller of the property's two bodies of water. A converted swimming pool in the sunnier backyard contains 16,000 gallons. Once the pools were filled, Zopfi says, they became suitable habitat for koi and other fish. Rainwater maintains the ponds' water levels; the system recirculates the water and uses scavenger fish to help clean things up.

Zopfi conserves water on the property by harvesting rainwater with barrels, directing downspout water into plant beds, using micro-irrigation and hand watering, and mitigating potential runoff.

Dividing her property into two distinct environments subtropical and shady in front; sunny and relatively arid (as arid as Florida gets) in back reflects a major principle of water conservation: Right plant, right place. As Zopfi explains: "You have to raise children; plants, you just put them in the right place and they'll do good."

Zopfi, who grew up in Bartow, points to her shade-loving orchids hanging throughout the verdant front-yard canopy of plants and trees, where they nourish themselves on morning dew. "Some orchids need to hang in the shade and some in the sun," she said. "I have orchids in the backyard that need morning sun, so they're back there. But these just want to hang under the trees, get the morning dew and just hang here."

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Aquatic features highlight 'water-wise' yard