WATER GARDENING FOR THE FOX VALLEY 

Written by June Grayson 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you think that only millionaires can afford their own water gardens, think again. According to Robert Steinbach, owner of The Aquatic Nursery, Elgin, you can create a water garden this summer with a spade and rake, a twenty dollar bill, and a few hours of your time. Then spend the rest of the summer lounging in a comfortable garden chair enjoying your own "waterfront" property. Professor Steinbach is a practicing biologist and instructor of biological sciences, zoology, and botany at Elgin Community College, who, by his own admission, has had a 40 year obsession with aquatic biology. "Even as a little child, I could spend hours lying beside the creek behind my home, playing with the snails, and watching the fish shimmering among the water plants."  

As soon as he was 10 years old and able to "rebel," 

he insisted on spending his Sunday afternoons at the Shaw Gardens in St. Louis, while the rest of his family paid obligatory visits to elderly relatives. This internationally-famous, 79-acre botanical garden was donated to St. Louis by Henry Shaw, a Victorian gentleman who transplanted English and European ideas of aquatic gardens to the United States.  

Unlike other men, who have to give up memories of "snips and snails and puppy dog tails" for adult realities, Mr.Steinbach has been able to parlay those childhood pleasures into a permanent way of life. About the only things missing these days are the puppy dog tails.  

He majored in biology at Southern Illinois University and earned his Master's degree at Florida State University. Since then, he has studied alpine lakes, peat bogs, swamps, rivers, and even roadside ditches throughout the United States and Puerto Rico to discover how to create an ideal balanced aquatic environment without the use of harmful chemicals or mechanical enhancements. The Aquatic Nursery, a consuming hobby as well as a successful sideline business, is the result of those studies. 

He has installed a miniature version of the same ecological system in the Elgin Community College greenhouse where fish swim in water that's always clear, purified not by harmful chemicals or conventional filters, but by aquatic plants that flourish from their steady diet of fish waste.  

Mr. Steinbach teaches in the morning and evening, leaving his afternoons free to work in his almost one acre of connecting backyard pools. As soon as the ice breaks in the spring, he is busy propagating the fish, snails, and aquatic plants that have wintered over in his ponds and which his customers will buy all summer.  

Every spring, Mr. Steinbach mixes four truckloads of dirt with special fertilizers to create his own potting soil, the exact formula of which is his proprietary secret. "I have an English friend who takes three years to raise a water lily to selling size. Using my techniques, I can obtain the same growth in three months."  

The yearly buying frenzy begins on Mother's Day and continues throughout the summer when customers come from as far away as Indiana and Wisconsin for professional advice and supplies. His wife Jackie and children Natalie and Nathan assist him on busy days. Once you have installed your own aquatic garden, it won't need much maintenance. "The trick is to have the right balances," Mr. Steinbach explains. "People don't believe me when I say we have no mosquitoes. The fish eat the mosquito larvae and the algae. The plants provide oxygen for the fish. Snails and dragon flies fill their special ecological niches. You don't even need an electric pump unless you want to create a waterfall or fountain."  

You can have a water garden even with out a backyard. "Grow a lotus plant with pink, yellow, white, or red blossoms in a half-barrel on your patio," Mr. Steinbach suggests. "Drain the pot in the fall and store the root in the basement until spring."  

There is only one contraindication to a water garden. "Little children and water don't mix," cautions Mr. Steinbach. "A toddler can drown in water only a few inches deep."  

	Aquatic gardens are nothing new, of course. Water lilies are indigenous to practically every country in the world, including Siberia. You can even find common water lilies growing beside the Fox River.  

Archeologists have discovered that the ancient Egyptians cultivated water lilies on the shores of the Nile River. Petals of lilies and lotuses were buried with the Pharaohs. Water flowers served as design motifs in art and architecture. 	 

	Credit the Victorians with the modern resurgence of interestin aquatic gardening. Thaddaeus Haenke, European botanist, discovered the amazing and gigantic Victoria amazonica in South America in 1801. Thomas Bridges brought its seeds to English gardens in 1846 and a British botanist, John Lindley, named the plant for the beloved English Queen Victoria, thus insuring its success. American travelers to England brought seeds back home. By the turn of the last century, every important public and private park in the United States had to have its own water lily garden. 

Also around 1900, Claude Monet, the famous impressionist artist, created the most famous lily pond of all time on his four-acre estate 50 miles northwest of Paris. He immortalized 

his water lilies in the famous series of paintings, Decoration des Nympheas. You can see some of his water lily paintings at the Chicago Art Institute. 

Closer to home, St. Charles has its own water lily artist. Ann Schuster uses the blooms from her two small ponds as inspiration for her work. "Water gardens are so relaxing. You don't need an ocean or a lake; a two-foot pond is big enough. I love to hear the water during the day and the frogs at night."  

	Why have a water garden? "In one word: tranquility," Robert Steinbach says. It's nice to know that something so precious can be found in our own back yards.  

##### To start your own water garden, call Professor Steinbach at 708-742-2579. Or visit your own local garden supply nursery. Many garden stores are now stocking the materials for water gardens because of the ever growing interest in water gardening. 

 

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