Changing the Way the World Builds Ponds – Part One

I have a dream.

I dream that someday everybody you talk to about water gardens doesn't say, "I've heard they are a lot of work.” I dream that when contractors talk with potential customers about ponds they won't have to spend half their time overcoming people's fears. I dream that when a do-it-yourself customer stops in front of the water gardening department at a retail shop, they won't stand there confused and uncertain of what they're looking at.

At Aquascape Designs, we are working hard to turn our dreams for the water gardening industry into realities. When they do, everyone will benefit. The water gardening industry will gain a much-needed degree of professionalism. Pond lovers everywhere will enjoy more beautiful, lower maintenance water features. And very importantly, contractors and retailers can concentrate on selling the lifestyle of water gardening instead of overcoming customers’ objections because of the horror stories that are so commonly associated with traditionally constructed water features.

Take a look at the top five factors that will help your company and the water garden industry grow:

ELIMINATE THE AMBIGUITY. Few companies have developed set systems and procedures that their crews must follow when constructing water features. Instead, every water feature project is approached differently. Although approaching water feature construction this way can result in a successful project, the time, energy and effort needed to pull it off is greatly exaggerated. Additionally, avoiding set systems and procedures great increases the potential for money-sapping problems and headaches is greatly increased.headaches.

At Aquascape Designs, the biggest key to our company's success is our strict adherence to a single way of constructing water features. The process that we follow to construct a project does not change from job to job. Whether a job is 10-foot by 10-foot or 1 acre, we build it following the same proven 20-step construction process. From the outside, having a philosophy and a set way of doing things might appear to be inflexible, unpractical and uncreative. Quite the contrary is true, however.

We have yet to run across a water feature installation project that couldn't be done in our 20-step process. Yes, sometimes we have to make it less complicated (a problem we will address later) but we can always construct the water feature following our process. If you enjoy the creative aspects of constructing a water feature, following a set procedure allows you to concentrate on those aspects of a project. Instead of spending your time on figuring out the “how-tos” you are free to concentrate on the “what ifs.” What if we could twist the waterfalls this way or make the stream split here? Our mind thinks as it assembles the pieces needed to make the project work. Creativity increases, not decreases, when you follow a construction process.

Many bottom-line factors also played into our decision to follow a set process. Estimating man-hours and material is much easier and more accurate since the only thing that changes is the size, shape and finished look. Crew speed and efficiency increased as they expanded what worked and got rid of what didn't. Problems were virtually eliminated and headaches reduced because, instead of experimenting with something we thought would work, we followed the system knowing it would work.

One water garden industry expert argued that there are more ways than one to skin a cat. The analogy is true and there are many, many ways to create beautiful, low-maintenance water features. Our experience however, is that if you find a better way to skin a cat, you can skin more cats. The bottom line is that the rampant ambiguity that exists in America on how to build ponds causes nothing but confusion and frustration for pond lovers and builders alike. Following a set system, whether it's ours, yours or someone else's, will eliminate most of this ambiguity every time you build a pond.

CORRECT INFORMATION. Pick up five different books on water gardening and see how much of the advice contradicts itself. How deep should a pond be? How many hours of sunlight do you need to grow aquatic plants? What type of construction material should you use to build a pond? All the good advice seems to contradict itself. One manufacturer recommends one way while another says the complete opposite. The pool supplier tells you one thing, the garden center another and the guy at the pet shop swears they are both wrong. Yikes! Enough is enough. Although everyone means well, the results are the same. Installers and do-it-yourselfers end up confused and frustrated with the whole process.

Who are the people who disseminate the supposedly factual information about water gardening? The builders who install the ponds? Rarely. A builder has an impact on the local or maybe regional level but rarely at a national level. Instead, there are four different groups of people who have primarily educated others on water gardening: authors, plant growers, manufacturers and professionals.

This is not to say all of these professionals who are associated with water gardening are naive. However, since these four groups of people, with limited experiences as a whole, affect the entire water garden industry, they must work harder to learn the truth about this industry. Manufacturers need to test these products in the field and not just a lab. Products that are created in a controlled environment perform much differently in the field. Retailers need to hold manufacturers responsible for their claims. Authors, who write books and magazine articles on water gardening, need to stop recycling the same traditional information. And everyone needs to get their hands dirty to see what works, what doesn't and why when building a pond. When industry professionals start basing their advice on their own experiences building ponds, their advice will be practical instead of theoretical.

The author is chief executive officer, Aquascape Designs, Batavia, Ill. Check out Lawn & Landscape Online tomorrow for Part 2 of this story.