Ponds Make Splash With Homeowners; Retailers Swim in Sales
The trickling sound of water is turning into a steady stream of profits as homeowners discover the delights of backyard water gardens.
In a recent five-year span, nationwide sales of ponds and accessories rose nearly 60%, according to Bruce Butterfield, research director at the National Gardening Assn., a nonprofit membership organization based in Burlington, Vt. In 1993, he said, consumers spent $367 million on water gardens. In 1998, they spent $659 million.
“It’s a relatively new trend, but has been growing fairly steadily,” Butterfield said. Western states account for about 20% of sales.
Mike Wronkowski, nursery manager at Green Arrow Nurseries and Hardware in North Hills, has tracked the same trend in the Valley. He said his store began carrying pond equipment about four years ago, but that consumer interest has blossomed within the last year.
“[Sales] were slow the first two years,” Wronkowski said, “but now we’re selling more ponds and supplies. This year, we’ve had to reorder almost every size of [pond] liners. We probably sold five or six in one weekend when we first got them in. It seems that almost every customer who comes in is buying pond accessories.”
Wronkowski said nurseries have always carried water fountains, but today it is easier for do-it-yourselfers to create water gardens.
Backyard water gardens can be as simple as a whiskey barrel with some floating plants or as elaborate as a koi pond, complete with waterfall and bridge. Ponds can run anywhere from $100 to several thousand dollars.
There are two basic types of ponds--a “bog pond” or natural pond that is mostly plants, with some surface-skimming fish thrown in to eat mosquitoes, or a fish pond, often filled with colorful and expensive koi. Bog ponds let plants and nature do most of the maintenance, while koi ponds require a more sophisticated filtering system.
Jeff Kite, manager at Sunland Water Gardens, said he has seen a slow but steady growth of interest in water gardens over the last decade. About 15 years ago, the company, which was started by his grandfather as a plant and cactus nursery about four decades ago, switched to carrying only water garden supplies. Today, fish and plants cover most of the nursery’s half-acre.
Do-it-yourselfers have two choices for creating a pond--preformed fiberglass shapes or a rubber liner, similar in consistency to an inner tube, that lets you create your own design.
A 10-foot-by-10-foot liner, which holds about 540 gallons of water and retails for about $78, is the most popular item, especially for first-time enthusiasts, Kite said. The largest preformed pond holds only 218 gallons and costs about $189.
Rick Moat, who bought the two-acre Garden Concepts in Santa Clarita seven years ago, is convinced that ponds are catching on. “I’m busy all day, every Saturday, answering questions about ponds. And I’m booked solid on my maintenance [route]. Most of my business now is fixing ponds that require way too much maintenance.”
He refurbished and now maintains the 100,000-gallon water garden and rock fountain at Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.
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His first five years of business were “real tough,” he said. But last year, it was doing well enough that he could sell his auto body shop. In June, he will open a 2,500-square-foot shop, Decor Botanica, in Valencia Town Center.
One key to his success, he said, was having a large selection. He now carries more than 20 fountain styles, 200 types of steppingstones and a wide variety of decorative items, plus fish, turtles, frogs, snails and plants.
Home gardeners often start with a small bog pond, Moat said, because it can be maintained without a filter. “It’s very inexpensive to build,” he said. “Basically, just dig a hole and drop in a rubber liner, which is about 80 cents a square foot. Fill it with water, put some plants in. After time, it will balance itself out.”
Pumps and filters cost anywhere from $30 to more than $1,000, depending on the size of the pond.
One easy water garden is a free-standing version, such as a whiskey barrel, one of the most popular decorative containers. A barrel costs about $30 and a plastic liner about $25. All that’s needed is a pump to circulate the water, and minnows or other small fish to control mosquitoes.
Perhaps the biggest expense are the decorations. Rocks start at 10 cents a pound for small decorative slabs to $200 for fake boulders. Real boulders are even more expensive, Moat said, because homeowners also have to hire someone to move them.
“If you put five or six boulders around your pond, it can add up,” said Moat, who recently built a pond that had $1,800 worth of rocks alone.
Fish prices vary from about $3 to $13 for decorative goldfish to the more elaborate koi, which range from $8 for small fish to several hundred dollars for the larger, fancier carp.
Plants start at about $2, but exotic water lilies can run $20 to $50.
Woodland Hills homeowners Rochelle Vernon and Matthew Earl have water gardens within blocks of each other--but they couldn’t be more different. Vernon built her two ponds, which support about 20 varieties of plant life but no fancy fish, for a pittance, scavenging bricks, rocks, plants and polliwogs from various sources.
Earl invested about $5,000 to create an impressive rock waterfall and 1,400-gallon pond that is home to a dozen brightly colored Australian koi, which cost $40 each.
Earl’s family “enjoy the tranquillity of the water” so much that he plans to build another pond and waterfall on the other side of the yard.
Vernon isn’t sure how much she spent, but she knows it wasn’t much. The foundation of one pond was built with rubble from the 1994 Northridge earthquake. A neighbor who was building a swimming pool provided her with dirt to build up the sides and a friend who worked in a nursery gave her a good deal on lining. Her brother helped with the digging and heavy work and she made her own footbridge from a kit bought via the Internet.
Both Vernon’s ponds have waterfalls built with the remnants of her old fireplace, which was destroyed in the quake.
Maintenance for both Earl and Vernon is relatively simple. Vernon spends about an hour a week cleaning algae and pruning the plants. Earl spends about 10 minutes a day feeding the fish and has a fish expert come out to do routine maintenance every two weeks. He figures he spends about $200 a month for maintenance, fish food and upkeep.
Running water, besides being very relaxing, also can be used to mask annoying noise, such as the sound of a nearby freeway.
The soothing sound of water, Vernon and Earl agree, is the major attraction of a pond. It “soothes my soul,” Vernon said.
