"Natural Swimming Ponds – A Guide for Building" - At last the code, the commandments and DIY manual all in one

Natural Swimming Ponds – A Guide for Building by Michael Littlewood. pub: Agri Media at £49.95 ISBN 978-3-86037-350-7

Do you like the idea of a swimming pool that is not full of harmful chemicals and keeps itself clean naturally, working in harmony with nature to give you the most blissful swimming experience you The experience of swimming in naturally clean water untainted by any chemicals or salt is an experience never to be forgottencould ever imagine? If it sounds a bit too much of an ideal and you are even having difficulty keeping your fish pond clear and not get all clogged up with algae or blanket weed then you will understand that the construction and planting of such a thing has to be somewhat special. To ensure clarity of water and sustainability, every aspect of the construction of the pool has to be exactly right. Although the initial overall concept sounds simple, to get it right, a lot of things have to be taken into account, done in the right order and in the end it all works out to be quite expensive. So the last thing you want is a cock up and for you to be uneffectively pouring money into a hole in the ground. The concept is new, but already there are a lot of people out there that claim to know all about it. Some are great craftsmen and deserve more work than they get. Others are complete charlatans and deserve to be ‘outed’.

So how are you going to tell what is the right way of going about making a swimming pond? If there are so many things to take into account, it must be possible to forget some things or leave out others that don’t get noticed until it is too late? That is very true and it is one of the problems that everyone who has a swimming pond up until now has had to face i.e. do the guys I’m employing know what they are doing and are they doing it right?

Well now for just a little less than £50 you have can have a bible, the veritable gospel according to Michael Littlewood – about Natural Swimming Pools. He has already produced one tome that has spread the word, a taster on the techniques, illustrating the possibilities. This was “Natural Swimming Pools” described as “inspiration for harmony with nature”- available from the Amazon store on this site. But now we have the manual  - not just a flimsy step-by-step instruction affair like you might get free with IKEA furniture kit. This is a serious hand-holding guide through the minefield of information and misinformation that blasts from all quarters. Believe you me, with this little honey you can take on all comers and lay it on the line as to how it has got to be done. That not only includes how it is going be, how much, what to order and in what order. (see the Blog for December)

The natural scenery of the Austrian landscape can only complemeted with a Natural Swimming Pool.

Above get it right from the start

Michael Littlewood, a garden designer with a considerable reputation and a stickler for getting right, is also famous for his books and drawings on landscape details. These were perhaps borne from a desire to see that contractors maintained standards in construction and they have quickly become the standard reference for many students and landscapers when it comes to the tried and techniques for hard landscaping. So when the concept of a pond that you can swim in emerged in the UK back at the turn of the Millenium, Micheal Littlewood was determined to pioneer it for the UK.
The concept of swimming ponds had been familiar in Europe, especially Austria and Germany, for well over a decade and it was there that Michael Littlewood carried out Natural swimming poools do not have to completely informal. Near a house formality and straight edges may be more suitablehis research, being there just at the time when a lot of the theory had been tried and tested fully and the results could well and truly assessed. Now he has come up with the truly tried and tested parameters to guide you in creating the perfect natural swimming pond, one that remains perfectly clear from the dawn of spring right through to the fall using the minimum amount of power and subtly filtering the water by the use of plant life and their associated microbes.

So if you are going to contract this project out or  you are going to do it yourself, this book will guide you through an established procedure and the right materials to use. There is, for instance, a minimum size and depth; there needs to be a certain number of the right plants per literage and there needs to be a regular turnover of water through the planted areas, called the ‘regeneration zone’ where microbes associated with the plants roots do most of the work of cleaning the water and so on. Michael has not only researched all aspects of the concept, he supervised the building of the first natural swimming ponds in this country. He effectively started the ball rolling on the firm well-researched backbone of his accumulated experience in Europe and now some of the contractors he used are now the most established and respected ‘swimming pond’ contractors in the country like Woodhouse Landscape Ltd and Fairwater Ltd.   

These images of early ponds in Austria, some 15years old, are the inspiration for Michael Littlewoods books.

Getting it right in the detail to the absolute end

If you are considering a natural swimming pool, you need this book – “Natural Swimming Pools a guide for Building” by Michael Littlewood. Unless you are a clone of Michael himself, there is no way you can do without it. It may be the best part of £50 but it will give you the reassurance and guidance throughout the project that you will surely need, and in doing so save you a lot of money. Why? Because it is an insurance against the inevitable mistakes and problems that will arise if you don’t have it, therefore it is the only essential manual and an incredibly useful directory to boot.

The pictures are inspirational, but if you are in any doubts inspiration-wise you will need the “Natural Swimming Pools – Inspiration for Harmony with Nature” written by Michael in 2005. After this the decision will be made and there will be not going back. On the other hand if the books help you decide that this is really not for you, then again you have saved yourself a whole heap of money. After all, swimming ponds only really begin to look good after about 20 grand has been spent on them.

What you get:

The book covers the Development of the project, showing you how to site and plan the project. This is no half–hearted quick whiff of what’s done, more to impress than inform. This gets down to the They function a focal point to the garden and work with the broader landscape adding light and reflection.real nitty-gritty. If you had considered doing the task yourself, there is a word to just tell you take care and good luck. Also if you go ahead then don’t miss a page.

From there we go to project Management, which gives you an overall sequence of operations an even gives you a Bill of Quantities so that you can price this project down to the last square inch of pond liner and gravel.

As the project proceeds each step is broken down into the correct order for consideration, so we have the Building: site preparation, excavation, drainage, lining, walls ( and it even covers conversions of ordinary chemically cleaned swimming pools) and the substrate of the ‘regeneration’ zones.
Plumbing: pumps, pump chambers, filter chambers, skimmers, balancing tanks, outlet drains, overflows, pipework and commissioning- what adjustments you need to make once the system is turned on.
Electrical including lighting.
Other Structures to consider like decking, jetties, waterfalls, steps and ladders, bridges, beaches and other edging.
Then there is the water itself; testing it, what to do about the elements within it, the quality and water loss. This is a fairly basic introduction to the science and in my view too limited. I would have The shear quantity of plants will inevitably attract wildlife and the quality of the water will attract many friends.perhaps wanted something more thorough even if it did go a little above my head.
Planting : here we get the works from plant lists to even charts mapping hardiness zones. There is a list of edible water plants ‘for hungry swimmers’ for some unknown reason and the thumbnail photos of some of the recommended plants are a little inadequate for ID purposes, but you could always buy my book for that!
Care or maintenance is next running through the seasons, but there is no warning about what may happen sooner or later, when the whole lot of the substrate has to be removed and replaced, either 7 or 15years down the line depending on the use and detritus it has had to cope with.
Construction Detailing. After ‘Care’ there comes what Michael is famous for, his meticulous detailing on construction showing you all the tricks and secrets of the installation that become part of the magic of the scene to the casual observer. They will say “Just HOW did you do it! It’s amazing!”
And your ‘think-bubble’ says – “Its all in the detail.”

To finish with there is a mine of information on specialist contractors all over the world, appendices on helpful products, glossaries on terminology and measurement conversions for American readers.

There are thousands of these pools all over Austria and Germany and they are only just beginning to arrive in the UK.On the final page there is a note about Michael Littlewood the author and his fantastic achievements all over the world in the realms of building and landscaping using concepts of sustainability and permaculture. It says:
“He sees his concepts as a dramatic and conspicuous example of the value of ecological design, where separating and combining functions and uses makes the most of both worlds, the natural and artificial while at the same time creating beauty.”
This means that natural swimming pools don’t only look good, they are good, both for you and the environment. You may have to share it with some little animals, but you will have created something more than just a pool, more of a pond in which you can swim; a sustainable environment in balance and you sure will be pleased with yourself.

“Natural Swimming Ponds – A Guide for Building by Michael Littlewood.” pub: Agri Media,  ISBN 978-3-86037-350-7 can be obtained from the publisher or Michael himself for £49.95 plus £5p+p.Plants and people in perfect harmony
Please contact Michael by email on: michael@ ecodesignscape.co.uk
Or contact him from his website: www.ecodesignscape.co.uk
Telephone of Fax: (01460) 75515 or write to: PO Box 25, South Petherton, Somerton TA13 5W.
The book is also available from this site in the Books Dept of the Shop.

In the USA it is available from Powell’s Bookstore at $99.95, www.powells.com