About Us

The Water Gardener Magazine.com
The one-stop index and guide to water gardening for the beginner and enthusiast, but also the shop window for the water garden trade and retailer.

Here at last is a revival of the original concept of The Water Gardener Magazine, in its heyday the most popular magazine to deal with the subject of water gardens and aquatics. This time it is going online to suit the modern demands of the public and trade alike.

Peter May, editorConceived by Peter May, author of 6 books on water gardening and one of the most prolific writers for the all the water garden magazines with over 27 years associated with the water garden products industry and landscaping, he sees a crying demand from both the general public and the trade for somewhere that provides reliable information for water gardeners on: how to do it, what to get and where to get it! It will be the consumers guide to the best in water gardening and it can be a shop window for manufacturers and a sign post to retailers of the better water garden products in the market place.

• The magazine has free access, with special features open to subscribers that only have to submit their email address and home address.
• On the home page are short tasters of the latest and seasonally relevant articles. Clicking on ‘read more’ will take you to the article in full. The magazine is simple to navigate, informative and colourful.
• Articles are added on a weekly basis covering all aspects of water gardening and can be accessed under separate topic headings. These will include DIY, style, plants, fish, wildlife, water quality and fish health, famous gardens, history of water gardening, famous faces past and present, product analysis (e.g. pump design, and what’s good design for filters, fountains and waterfalls). They will have proper references and bibliographies where appropriate or contain links to further research or reading.
• Reviews of products appear on a monthly basis and subscribers can access the library of reviews.
• The home page will also contain rolling items of the latest news relevant to the consumer and the trade. For the water garden enthusiasts that want to know what they must be doing now, there will be continually updated seasonal advice. Also launches of competitions will be announced in this section.
• News items will be added to on a ‘3 times a week basis’, or if there is any earth shattering news, as it comes. Reviews of RHS Garden Shows, with particular emphasis on gardens featuring water, will appear on the first day of the show with a complete table of all the awards for all the exhibitors. These include the Chelsea Flower Show, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, Malvern Flower Show and Tatton Park.
Major gardening news items or items that affect horticulture particularly in a big way are covered. These will include items related to water shortages, natural disasters and seasonal extremes, or the activities of big names or celebrities in the world of gardening or the media.
• There will be links to review articles and a product review forum where readers can express their views on products and manufacturers can respond.
• A buyers guide will evolve dependent on the increasing number of reviews.
• A questions and answers forum will also provide beginners and more experienced water gardeners to share their knowledge.
• A secure online shop sells the very best products available to the general public.
• Subscribers will have access to the forums and calculators that estimate quantities and materials for their relevant projects. One specific calculator will indicate which products of a particular manufacturer can be used for any individual product.
• Advertisers can advertise on relevant pages for their products and can be charged on a weekly, monthly or ‘click-through measurement’.
• Links are available to an advertiser’s website, or advertisers can pay for an editorial that works as their own mini-website within the magazine giving a complete biography or profile of the manufacturer or retailer with relevant links to retailers of their products (if they are manufacturers) or their suppliers (if they are retailers). This is particularly useful for small retailers and specialist manufacturers eager to keep their profile active and visible.
• There will be a register of shops and retailers all around the country that sell particular ranges of products. Individual outlets will be profiled on a monthly basis. There will also be a separate trade news section to which retailers and manufacturers will be invited to submit items of news, product launches, refurbishment, change of staff etc.
• There will be a secure online shop primarily designed to sell books and information as guides on design, building and looking after water gardens. But also to sell the best of easily available products that will enable readers to build a reliable and sustainable water garden or water feature.
• Other features will include: an ever-expanding directory of plants, marginals, lilies, floaters, oxygenators and bog plants, with descriptions of habit (and bad habits!), flowering, size etc.
• Fish identification directory, with comments on suitability for water gardens, particular habits and special aspects of care.
• Glossary of water gardening terminology with conversion rates for water garden measurements.
• A Diary of significant events that may interest the water gardener coming up throughout the year.
• Also for subscribers, an online blog feature will be available for those enthusiasts who feel they have a special interest they want to share.
• For readers who require visual inspiration, there will be a gallery of plans and photographs of many water gardens of every style and size.

These are all items that were considered part of the initial concept. The actual magazine itself will evolve according to the demands of the readership, which will be constantly invited to offer various forms of feed back.

Anyone who would like more details on advertising or feels like making suggestions should contact

Peter May at www.watergardenermagazine.com ,
telephone: 01761 463385 mbl: 07985 750 323
Email: peter@peterjmay.demon.co.uk
Write to: Peter May
Editor of watergardenermagazine.com
Stoney Batch
Street End Lane
Blagdon
North Somerset

Over the last two or three decades water gardening has evolved from a zone of horticulture wrapped in the mists of mystery. A zone of myth, muck and magic, it seemed to attract the more eccentric gardeners or those with an aptitude for engineering or building mixed in with the spirit of the pioneer. If these qualities of character were lacking and a water garden was what was needed to complete a landscape or garden of a particular style then a considerable investment of funds was required in order to create a water garden of satisfactory quality. In other words, water gardening was a hobby for those with a good supply of disposable income or the slightly nutty.

There has always been an interest in the watery world of ponds and rivers fascinating children and adults alike, and to have your very own pond in your own garden would be a fulfilment of so many dreams:

• It brings real live nature right to your back door, an innate desire in all of us since we turned our back on the wild many millennia ago.

• It gives us a chance to keep fish as pets but with as much freedom as they would experience in natural conditions.

• It also gives us the chance to grow a completely new range of plants that we just would not be able to otherwise. It also provides a link with other plants, both visually and by creating a microclimate for other plants to appreciate.

• A water garden is an essential feature of every garden style since the dawn of gardening in ancient Persia or China or wherever you suppose it started. But also a well-designed water garden can form a link between a formal style and a more natural area in a small garden or makes the perfect focal point for any garden design.

• If the water in the pool is moving, there is sound and movement and the garden seems to come alive even to the dullest sensibilities.

So many reasons, not lost on a general public fascinated with what was on offer in all the new ‘Garden Centres’ that were appearing from the crusty remains of old nurseries back in the early 1970s. These were offering the concept of a water garden to anyone fit enough to dig a hole. “A Pool in a Day!” one advertisement rang out. The ‘Garden Centres’ were keen to market any new ideas, and the materials for creating water gardens were highly profitable. So the competition was soon on to fulfil a burgeoning market.

Many of the early products had the same ‘Heath Robinson’ look to them that marked the efforts of the early pioneers. Submersible pumps looked built for a purpose, but what that purpose was certainly not being efficient at shifting water for long periods of time. Filters were adapted domestic header tanks fitted with waste water piping; ultra violet lamps (when they came along) were borrowed from hospital water sterilizing units; truck tarpaulin and tent groundsheet manufacturers were trying to sell their products as pond liners.
Products came and went and luckily some have stayed away for good, like the heavy chemicals used to keep the pond clear. The products that stayed were those that were designed for the purpose and proved to be efficient at doing it.
The intense competition that developed in the market had this effect with the net result that a product like a pump with a particular performance is often cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, will run continuously and without clogging for a lot longer period than any comparable pump 25years ago.
Filtration units were designed taking into account serious research into the chemistry and biology of what is going on in a pond or a filter.
New products for lining ponds made water gardens even more accessible for people with a budget in mind. In fact different levels of budget were catered for with various grades of product dependent on stretchiness and durability, some even with ‘Lifetime Guarantees.’
Ultra violet lamps no longer killed algae, they just changed their behaviour and growth patterns.
Gizmos and additives for keeping algae and detritus at bay and aimed at reducing the work load of the water gardener abounded.
To keep the general populace informed of all the latest improvements and trends a whole host of magazines littered newsagent shelves. At one point there was five, all catering for the same batch of readers: “Aquarist and Pondkeeper”, “Water Gardener”, “Water Gardening”, “Essential Water Garden” and “Koi, Ponds and Gardens”. Out of that lot, only the last survives as “Koi”, now largely dedicated to the particular branch of pond keeping that involves the nurturing of koi carp. “Aquarist and Pond keeper” changed to “Today’s Fishkeeper” and now focuses almost entirely on the indoor aquarium. Those that didn’t adapt were all casualties of each other’s competition and a diminishing readership.

The ‘water garden industry’ meanwhile carries on developing and making new products. Not all of them are any good, falling down badly on design and durability. People still want water gardens or water features, but where do they find the best products? In particular, where does the newcomer to the subject get their information? Books are out of date the minute they leave the publisher, although they can provide a good foundation of knowledge. If they have turn to the Internet and the World Wide Web they will have found a misleading mishmash of gobbledygook that may have left them more flustered than informed. But since you have managed to find this ‘online magazine’, we can build that foundation for you, or if you have it ( a pond that is), we can point you in the direction of the best products. New trends, changes in taste and style are all reflected in the world of water gardens. This is your online magazine that covers every aspect of water gardening. Welcome, look round, learn and enjoy!