It’s time, once again, to get out your cameras and notebooks and go snooping around other people’s outdoor spaces.

The Sunflower Water Garden Society’s 2005 Water Garden Tour is this weekend. Whether you’ve been thinking of adding a water feature to your landscape or you’re already a veteran of gardens that bubble, trickle and crash, you’re bound to find something inspiring among the 15 sites on the tour.

I was fortunate enough to visit two of the outdoor oases on this year’s tour.

From mud pit to showstopper

When Barb and Eric Torgerson moved into their home on Jayme Street in 1998, the backyard was a mud pit – literally.

Barb Torgerson, of Lawrence, sprays plants surrounding her water garden in the backyard of her West Lawrence home. Torgerson's garden will be featured this weekend on the Sunflower Water Garden Society's 2005 tour.

Lawrence had seen an abnormal amount of rainfall that year, and the Torgerson’s new yard had taken a beating. Luckily, Barb is a motivated gardener and former professional landscape designer. Tackling the yard was the first project she took on in their new home.

“I don’t do very well with life in a box,” she says. “So the first thing we did was line out some beds and bring in compost and mulch.”

They ended up doing a lot more.

When I recently toured the garden, it was anything but a mud pit. Barb’s use of layering shows what a keen eye she has for structure and what she calls “the bones” of the yard. She has used conifers and ornamental grasses to give the garden year-round interest. Perennial beds weaving along the fence line are awash in spectacular waves of purples, blues, reds and yellows. An aspen tree’s leaves rustle against one another in the breeze.

Mary Harvey, who lives at 100 Fall Creek Road, has very little landscape work to do except keep her backyard water feature full. The sculptural fountain is made of boulders brought in from Colorado. The Harvey's garden is on the 2005 Water Garden Tour.

It’s clear that Barb has been gardening most of her life; she seems to know just what’s perfectly suited for every corner of the yard.

Barb’s dad introduced her to gardening during her childhood in Wichita. When he passed away when Barb was just 13 years old, gardening gave her solace and helped keep her sane.

Tucked amid all the plants in the Torgerson’s backyard is a magnificent pond inspired by one of Barb’s landscaping clients who had a tranquil water feature. The calming pond with a 2-foot waterfall is laden with pale pink and soft yellow water lilies in full bloom. Thalia, horsetail, marsh marigold and irises thrive in this sunny spot of the Torgerson’s yard.

Barb and Eric built the pond themselves in the summer of 2000 and used the dirt from digging the hole to create berms that surround the pond and are grounded with conifers, roses, thyme, lilies and bamboo.

Barb has some practical advice for people considering adding a water garden to their home landscape.

A dry creek bed of rocks flows at the base of a water feature in Mary and Joseph Harvey's backyard. The couple has incorporated plants that require little maintenance.

“Count the costs before you start; it is always more expensive than you think,” she says. “Then do it right the first time. You do not want to come back and fix a water feature. Then lean back and enjoy because it is a great asset to the garden.”

Minimal oasis

Mary and Joseph Harvey have incorporated water into their landscape in a more subtle way.

Whereas the Torgerson’s pond is soft and natural, the Harvey’s water feature is angular and sculptural.

The Harveys wanted the sound of running water in their landscape, but they didn’t want the upkeep involved in a full-fledged water garden with plants and fish. They also resisted for the safety of their grandchildren.

So instead of a pond, landscaper Matt Lawlor designed and installed a water feature grounded by giant boulders that he found in Colorado and transported to Lawrence.

A towering boulder rises to 6 feet and is surrounded by smaller boulders, with water starting at the peak, crashing onto the more diminutive rocks and ultimately flowing to a large river of rocks that pool at the bottom of the structure.

“It is a contrast of hard and soft with the water and the stone juxtaposed against each other,” Mary says.

Yucca plants scattered throughout the rock river bed give the landscape a minimalist look – precisely what the Harveys wanted.

The Torgersons and Harveys represent a drop in the bucket for this year’s Sunflower Water Garden Tour. Proceeds from ticket sales will go to the Sunflower Water Garden Society. So get out, get inspired, help a worthy club and meet other Lawrencians who share a love of water gardening.