The perfect pond maintenance manual By Peter J. May

Dedicated to my Mum and Dad, Eileen and Bob May; not for the reason that they are committed pond keepers; they've never even thought of having a pond, not ever. But because they would be tickled pink to have a book dedicated to them.

The Perfect Pond Maintenance Manual

For the cover: Time to Reflect by Lilies Water Gardens at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2005

OR

This will match up with the cover photo on Designing and Creating Water Gardens :A water garden in Somerset created by the author.

Preface and acknowledgements

When I first started landscaping, having worked my way up through the echelons of the world of estate garden maintenance, my first major project was to design a series of demonstration water gardens for a tiny family business that was called Blagdon Water Gardens. I knew plenty about plants and gardening but nothing about water gardens, so I was launched on a rapid course of development, as was the world of aquatics. This was in 1980 and the world of water garden and the aquatics industry was in its infancy and having a pond in your garden was a very expensive luxury. Famous names from way back like Amos and Francis Perry had developed considerable knowledge about plants and pond management, but it was all still in the realms of muck and magic. And that was the problem. Anyone that might be interested in water gardens would still have to be very ingenious and be prepared to get extremely mucky in creating and looking after a pond or water garden. Either that or be rich enough to pay someone else to do it.

Pond liners had been around for some years reliability and durability was very questionable. Submersible pumps were expensive and very short lived and filtration was something you did with swimming pools. There were durable products about but they were far beyond the pocket power of your average bod in the street.

It was my fortune to arrive at a point in the development of the business at Blagdon Water Gardens when the owners Mike Chivers, his wife Pam and son Charles made it a stated aim to make everything about water gardens more accessible to everybody and to manufacture and retail products that were reliable and could be taken off the shelf in a sort of kit form and used to easily make economic sustainable water gardens. Any problems had solutions, and they in turn led to simple products that were easy to use. And so they did. Building skills for creating water gardens became a thing of the past and the subtleties of planting out the pool was almost like painting by numbers. As a result of the aims and the endeavour behind them, within 10years Blagdon Water Gardens became the biggest aquatics retailer and also manufacturer of water garden products in Europe. They had tapped into a huge potential market, which if the price of the products was right the sales kept rolling in.

As the trade developed so new products were devised, some falling by the wayside, others paving the way for new developments that became an accepted part of the water garden range of products. For instance in 1980 all preformed ponds were fibreglass, but it was Blagdon Water Gardens that introduced the first plastic ponds (for good or bad); a new style pump was adapted from the design of a central heating pump that could run silently none stop for literally years; plants were sold ready for planting already installed in aquatic baskets; instead of sand, an underlay to cushion pond liners was invented and the biological filter was developed as a commercial product. Several new materials were tested for liners, but PVC improved over the years and butyl became cheaper when Firestone came up with a cheaper fish safe rubber liner.

During this time I helped to develop a new huge display at a new site in Somerset whist also following up any landscaping enquiries that came to retail centre. I worked on a top award winning garden at Chelsea, wrote and acted in a water garden instruction video for the HTA and built two water gardens for Arthur Billet at Clacks Farm, in so doing briefly becoming the pond expert for Central TVs Gardening Time. I designed further display areas for local garden centres locally and in France, Scotland and did a talk tour of South Africa. However I wouldnt have had the confidence to do these things unless I felt I knew what I was talking about and it was that opportunity I had of trying out and experiment with all the new gizmos for good or ill, that gave me that knowledge and understanding. I feel that in my time I have seen everything go wrong that can go wrong and on some occasions, spectacularly badly. This knowledge would have been acquired at considerable expense if I were launching into this world of water in all innocence today. The products may change but the principles and parameters they are based on remain the same and these are what is important in understanding the subject and the ecology of a pond. In the world at large as it now, with its instant information and instant availability, we can be deluged with information paraded as facts and get mislead as to what we really need to solve our problems. As far as water gardens go, this book will go a long way to solving your basic problems, be they biological or mechanical, and I would like to thank the people that gave me the experience and authority with which I write.

So thanks to the Chivers family that owned Blagdon Water Gardens at the time and everyone that worked with me in my team the past: the three Perry brothers, Rob Hembrow and Reece; landscaping colleagues that have helped me in the past and whose work has featured in both of these books, in particular Reg Treble and Nigel North and garden design colleagues whose work from the flower shows I have used to brighten otherwise dull DIY books I have tried to give credit where it is due.

Thanks go the Smith brothers who now own Blagdon Water Gardens where I test out more new products and photograph myself messing around in ponds. Many thanks in particular go to firstly the inspirational garden that firstly David and Rose Everett and their team at Anglo Aquarium Plant produce every year at Hampton Court and secondly Lilies Water Gardens. Also thanks again to Dougie Knight, landscaper extraordinary, in letting me share his secrets.

Also I would like to thank all my past clients, even those that tried to pull the wool over my eyes in regards to certain problems that arose after the water gardens were left successfully up and running. It all got put down to invaluable experience and sharpened the deductive wits.