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Email from Sally Hearn, Wildings Water Garden, Hadspen

To Peter May, The photo attached is a picture of my client Edward Hobhouse's gold koi fish welcoming the first warm day of spring - on the 31st March. The water garden was installed several years ago whenWildings water garden, Hadspen the garden enjoyed a re-birth. I have worked here for nearly seven years and Edward jestingly, (I hope) calls me his lazy gardener! Which is why I'm sending you two photo's of the water garden the Hobhouse family and myself lovingly tend - with a message to all 'lazy gardeners' -

A Water Garden is a lazy gardeners, 'must have'. The virtues of the summer pond / water feature are easily extolled; and my chosen spot for lolling away warm summer days - but when there's little going on in the flower beds, the trees are stark and the shrubs look like dead sticks; the power and beauty of the water garden comes into its own. The reflected colour and hues of winter and early spring skies enjoy central stage; add some wind, and a million watery visions, images and illusions pass before your eyes - no effort needed. Add some gold and silver koi fish and the spell is cast. There isn't a gardener on this earth who could compete - and once established, very little work is required and it never needs digging. . .

from Sally Hearn ( lazy gardener)

Buccament Bay was in trouble. The guys on the ground in St Vincent in the Caribbean had started digging the first pond and because no one on site had ever dug a pond either large or small there was a definite lack of confidenceThe hole was too big, too deep and not level.: The first job was to get the lads pumping out the water,but that was to prove to be the water table that had been breached. So another plan had to be devised. in the the direction in which the were going. In fact they were pretty sure that they were making a bit of a 'cock up' and when it is a 330,000 gallon pond you are digging a 'bit of a cock up' can easily turn into a 'God Almighty cock up!'

Despite sending innumerable plans and diagrams of techniques, and despite spending nearly £40 on telephone calls from my end, things still sounded as though they were drifting beyond a state of no return. There seemed nothing for it but to fly out to the rescue - Superpondman! As it was any way, they would soon get to a stage where a lot of decisions had to be made on site as the project progresssed into more complex stages, so it was a case of going out sooner rather than later.

Marginal plants provide protective cover too especially for the entry and exodus of animals to and from the pool. Their usefulness in the pool environment is that they are great users of nutrients and also serve to ‘landscape’ the pool into garden scene. They are called ‘marginals’ because they are generally planted around the margins of the pool, although between them they are tolerant of a quite range of water depths. In general they thrive in depths of water between 5 and 15cm above the soil they are planted in. This tolerance distinguishes them from Bog plants in that these will only tolerate moist soil where the water is draining away from the plant and not in a static slop.

Rupert Bridges from Aquatics Specialist Tetra offers advice and guidance

The recent weather may make it hard to believe, but spring really is on its way and, for most of us leaving the cold winter months behind and preparing for the spring sunshine is a refreshing thought. The same applies to ponds and their inhabitants which means now is the time to prepare your pond for the forthcoming months, as the rise in temperature brings about some key changes.

Calling all landscapers that tackle big ponds and complex koi ponds: if you are unsure that you are lining the pond in the right way and using the right techniques, you need some training, there is noThe course covers all you need to know from the vary basics of liner splicing to the sealing of quite complex details doubt about it. The best place to get that training is on the Firestone training course. It is such good value for money that you will wonder how they can ‘wine and dine’ you, put you up at a very comfortable hotel for the night, teach you for a full day how to install and splice up pond liner, whilst providing as much food and drink as you can consume during the day, all at such a rock bottom price of just over £200. Even if you forget all that, you come away with a certificate, all the tools you need for joining liners, instruction manual and even the ‘T’ shirt! Just the cost of materials you use up in the course of the ‘hands on’ practice must amount to more than the cost of the course.