MAY 14, 2009 ISSUE
Business Spotlight
Water Heaven Ponds & Nature’s Touch Nursery—Adding New Natural Wonders To the High Country
Margo and Michael Bailey’s 1.28-acre lot bordering Highway 105 has just the right amount of elevation for some of the most impressive water features the High Country has ever seen. Work on those features is currently underway as construction is now wrapped up on Water Heaven Ponds & Nature’s Touch Nursery’s new building, which houses offices and a massive garden gift center. Photo by Sam Calhoun
As a child, Margo Bailey can remember playing for hours in her grandmother’s goldfish pond. The fish, the rocks, the water, the sounds and the reflections all formed precious memories in Margo’s young mind.
Many years later, Margo’s husband Michael was putting the finishing touches on their home’s landscaping when he realized the design needed a centerpiece-like feature. Retreating back inside, Michael found Margo watching one of her favorite home gardening shows, which happened to feature backyard ponds.
“I shouted, ‘That’s what I want to do!” said Michael, who can remember immediately embarking on the project at 9:00 a.m. the same morning—in the rain.
A few years later, Margo returned home from work, slightly disgruntled and needing a change. Michael turned to her and said, “Start your own business.” The next day—almost 23 years ago—Margo took her husband’s advice and decided to follow her passion for creating memorable outdoor natural features by opening Water Heaven Ponds.
Today, Water Heaven Ponds & Nature’s Touch Nursery provides anything and everything that a High Country homeowner might want to place or construct in their yard—no, seriously.
The business designs, installs and maintains natural stone ponds, waterfalls, streams, pondless waterfalls, boulder fountains and rain gardens at homes and businesses across the High Country. Customers can also buy fish—all raised outdoors and quarantined for two weeks before sale for health purposes—such as Koi and goldfish, and the algae eating Hi Fin Shark and Japanese Trapdoor snails. Landscaping services are also available, as well as a selection of perennials, annuals, indigenous plants and the area’s largest selection of aquatic plants, including lilies, lotus, tropical floaters, underwater plants and marginals. A complete supply of pond building materials is also featured, as well as a swath of water treatments.
“We can do residential and commercial—we can service everybody,” said Margo.
“We can help with any location, from large acreage to a condo with a deck in the town,” said Michael.
What’s more, the business also includes a 1,200-square-foot garden gift shop that features wind chimes, birdhouses, seasonal flags, garden gnomes, fire pits, bronze spitters, watering stakes, hanging baskets, pottery, water pots, garden gifts, decorative stepping stones, custom painted baskets, statuaries, flappers and everything else you would ever think about putting outside to make a house a home.
For 16 years before moving to the High Country, Margo and Michael operated Water Heaven Ponds & Nature’s Touch Nursery from their home in Charlotte. Multiple acres afforded the Baileys roughly 7,000 square feet of space for a nursery and water features, which regularly attracted quite a crowd in the green-starved Queen City. Water Heaven Ponds & Nature’s Touch Nursery thrived in Charlotte.
After 16 years of working out of their home, Margo and Michael began to tire of having customers drop by during dinnertime and at odd hours; in addition, a series of incidents led Margo and Michael to no longer trust the ethics and education that their children were receiving from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
Soon after, on one of the family’s regular camping trips to the High Country, Margo made the decision to move the family to the mountains for good.
“I always loved the mountains and we used to come up here all the time,” said Michael.
“So we moved [Water Heaven Ponds & Nature’s Touch Nursery] to Banner Elk six years ago and grew out of the location in five,” said Margo, who, with Michael, are the parents of Luke, 18, and Allyson, 17.
Margo and Michael moved the location of the business this year from Tynecastle Highway in Banner Elk to 4415 Highway 105, just south of Boone. The Baileys bought a 1.28-acre lot bordering Highway 105 that has just the right amount of elevation for some of the most impressive water features the High Country has ever seen. Work on those features is currently underway as construction is now wrapped up on the business’s new building, which houses the office and the massive garden gift center.
“It’s a serene place,” said Michael, who discovered that part of Tweetsie Railroad’s original track runs through the back of the property. “It’s an ongoing work in progress. Each year, we’ll add more and more stuff.”
Margo is a hands-on owner. Mainly self-taught, Margo has honed her skills at designing outdoor water features through pond, fish and fish health seminars, various academic courses and trial and error. For large jobs, Margo might hire an excavation company, but primarily she does all the work herself, by hand and sometimes with a small crew, moving even boulders by hand.
It’s amazing what she can accomplish. Her water features can be seen at the entrances to area developments such as Cielo Falls and Cross Creek. Margo’s work is in every local gated community, including Diamond Creek, Linville Ridge, Elk River and Hound Ears, and in many smaller neighborhoods in Boone, Banner Elk, Beech Mountain and Blowing Rock.
And it’s no wonder. Margo painstakingly designs and builds each of her creations. An avid artist, Margo hand draws each of her designs for clients and is known for hand placing each rock in all of the ponds and waterfalls she builds. Setting her apart from other pond builders, Margo works hard to make sure her water features don’t leak and that pollutants don’t collect on the bottom of ponds by installing carefully planned lips on the ponds’ and waterfalls’ liners. Sometimes, she’ll even install a double-liner or an underlayment just to make sure the job is done right.
“I try to keep my prices reasonable so we can create a water feature for any budget,” said Margo. “And I’ve always believed that you do a job right the first time so it doesn’t have to be redone.”
“This is a major labor of love for us,” said Margo.
Water Heaven Ponds & Nature’s Touch Nursery is located at 4415 Highway 105 South between Boone and Foscoe. The business is open seven days a week, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Sunday. For more information, click to www.waterheavenponds.com or call 828-963-7000.
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