Choosing your landscaper: the devil in the detail!

To garden designers and homeowners contemplating have contractors build them a water garden.

When I design gardens or plan out landscapes, I have in my mind a picture of perfection. It is not just something that has welled up from the depths of the imagination, it is tempered and thought through in practical steps backed up with the knowledge and experience of how all these elements of a garden or a landscape go together and will work with one another over a period of time. So I end up with a plan that I know will not only be achievable in reality, but will also be sustainable over a very long period of time. (Well that’s the theory anyway!)

Then you give it to your client or you submit it for tendering and more often than not the team that gives the cheapest quote is chosen. Why?!

After that the project goes ahead and if it doesn’t end up costing more by the end, either somebody is out of pocket or the final job is not as good as it could be. And should we be surprised? Because every project, if it is to be just right, and if it has been planned properly, will cost a ‘X’ amount.
If a landscaper decides to do it more cheaply than is practical, he is either ripping himself off or he is going to cut corners by using inferior products or employing quicker techniques. This is naturally an oversimplification, but in the economics of the real world where a big company uses the investment of machinery and can buy in bulk and get heavy discounts he may be able to make some savings over the little guys. But there is a law of diminishing returns in economics that kicks in at a very small business level. This is about smaller companies not having the overheads of big companies, so they can usually compete on many levels with larger businesses for quite large and intricate jobs. In the case of water gardens, where there is a heavy use of hard landscaping and expensive aquatic products, normally half of the expense is in materials and half labour (in the UK). This makes it even more important that the quality of the materials is more than matched by the quality of the labour. The size of the business is not relevant; it is the quality of the workmanship and getting it right that counts.

Therefore beware of that lowest quote. Look for the ‘devil in the detail’ or lack of it. Try to get to see what the contractor’s recent workmanship is like and try to talk to old clients and see if they are likely to recommend the contractor you have in mind.

On Water Gardener Magazine.com there is soon to be Directory of Landscapers that are particularly good at water gardens. If there is one that you think deserves to be on it, then please let us know……also if there is one in it that is possibly doubtful then please let us know.

Once more unto the pumps dear friends

October is with us and nearly gone. With visits to France and America its been a busy year and activity doesn't seem to be abating. So it doesn't help when you have to keep going back on jobs to repair them because of equipment that is not capable of doing the job it was specifically made for. Yes, that's right. Another pump ceased to function on the big display at Blogland Water Gardens and yes it was one of the replacement Blagdon Torent HTT 10500E pumps. That's all I need to say. I was beginning to feel that I had been over the top in venting my spleen in previous postings. In fact I even felt guilty after Roger's comment made me stop and think. But now I feel that trial the has run its course and I have replaced the Blagdon Pump with an Oase Powershift PS15000. This seemed to be more than up to the job in hand. We will see how that performs. However there still lurks a Torrent with the Messner.

And so it goes on...

Last Friday saw me chest deep in that pool again. One of the dolphins had stopped spitting again! Then when I dragged the faulty pump out, once again soaking wet struggling with my anti-theft precautions, I found that I had put TWO Blagdon pumps on the fountain - not the two German Messner pumps I had imagined - and guess what, yep, it was the Blagdon Torrent that had thrown in the towel again. One thing you do have to say about these pumps is that at least they are consistent.

I replaced the Blagdon Torrent with another one, and we will see if the problems have been sorted. I'd be damned if I let this lie. I'm in a position where I can see these things happening and I'm also in a position to point out to people that something is wrong with a product. Most consumers dont have that privelege, and so when something goes wrong with something they have bought, many have a tendency to blame themselves and may not take the product back. Some that do, have to face a barage of questions as to whether they have been a complete idiot or not, installed it wrong or used it in a way that just not appropriate for that device.

If you do take it back and there are no questions asked and a new pump (or whatever) arrives on the counter even before you get through the door, you can safely assume that the path has been well trod before you. At best, this is a case of using the general public as your research and development team. As the general public comes across a fault and it seems to be pretty consistent then improvements have to be put underway. They all do it. I saw a case of it with the Laguna pressure flo filter boxes. Apparently all the problems have been sorted out now - water in the electrics - ceasing flow switches - U/Vs blowing, but thats not before a skip load of returns have accumulated at this aquatic centre.

OK, we general public, is this what is called 'being taken for granted'? Do they think that we are some sort of consuming homogeneous mass that can take any amount of messing around? There are other ways they think of us with desparaging lack of esteem. Take algicides. I once had an algicide manufacturer tell me that he produced his algicide at half strength. The reason he said was because they always over-dosed by nearly double because they always over-estimate on how big their pond is and/or allow for a bit extra 'just in case'. He said if he produced it at the right strength he would get people threatening to sue because his product killed their fish!

Further thoughts on duff pond pumps

With regard to the fountain at Blogland Water Gardens, I very soon got it going again. This time i made it easier to extract the pump if it did fail on me again. This unfortunately makes it more 'nickable' and thieving from displays is a problem the Blogland Water garden site suffers from with nauseating persistence. The pump was not preforming quite so lively as the previous one, which annoyed me. Where was the quality control on these things?
As for the reliability of the pump, I am reassured to a certain extent by another employee of BWG that the fault should have been sorted if the pump comes from stock post late May 2006. The cynic in me just doesn't say anything but has an enormous think bubble that says something like "We'll wait and see!".
This also makes me think with guilt of some of the articles I have written in the past testing pumps for performance. One thing I could never test for was the reliability, which if I was buying a pump, that would be the first thing on the list of qualities I would require. All we have to go on is the guarantee as displayed on the side of the box. There I was with the power to damn and denigrate and to declare a winner of the ultimate accolade of the best pump on the market (of its type) after just a few days of tests. Goodness knows what would have happened if the tests had gone on for 6months a years or even more. One pump i test and slagged off to the nth degree was a Little Giant from the US. I had that pump for years after using it to pump out filth and stagnant ponds the like of which would have seized and wrecked innumerable 'better' pumps.
In one article I did, I had this range of pumps that could best be described as 'all round' performers. In the tests it so happened that the cheapest pump came top in all the tests, although it did use a lot more power than the others. It was actually based on the old fashioned sump pump design. A 'Tried and tested' design you might think. After the test and before I had finished the article I took the pump to a job that involved pumping out a pond. Here the pump performed to its usual abilities for approximately 5 minutes and then blew up, or at least blew all the fuses to the outside main and burnt itself out inside. That was unfortunate since it was a timely reminder that there is more to a submersible pump than the gushing torrent of water that emerges from its outlet. So the unfortunate pump didn't get a very good review.
This wasn't a 'one-off'. When I started at the Water Gardens this time round, because of the on-going problem of thefts from the site during the day and night at the water gardens, it was decided to use in all the display ponds a brand of pump that had been bought in on a 'special deal'. These were retailing at less the 50quid, which was about a quarter of the price of a similar powered pump from a company with a good reputation. These pumps had a two year guarantee, which if these had not been pinched in less than a year, then there would be good value for money out of them.
The trouble is they started to conk out one by one about 6-9months after they went in. Once again I had made them hard to steal and so I was annoyed having to replace them. Each time I replace them, the lesson is reinforced that its just not worth taking the cheap option.

Submersible pond pumps you can depend upon to let you down

For the past couple of years I've been working my way round all the various water gardens at Blogland Water Gardens slowly trying to bring them back to life. Each renovation has had its own story, but now I'm on the last three that can be renovated. The remaining others have been trashed by the previous owners or looted for so much of their stone, they are beyond redemption. Why I am doing three at once is partly because I cant get all the materials at once to finsh any one project in one fell swoop. Also, I get bored fiddling around with just one, and also the weather is not always right for doing one. Like for instance now it is so dry, and has been for weeks, so I cant do anything with the soil around the smallest and simplest pond. A fibreglass preformed pool that I am try to finish off with a bit of a Japanesey flourish.
Before that it was so wet that the water table was making it impossible to get it in the hole.
Last Friday I felt I had the energy to make a big impression on maybe two, if not all of the projects, but things were not going to work out as planned. A big fountain display I had installed in a new pond built next to the road was not working properly. It had three enormous fountain pumps running the jets through the beaks of three dolphins. I had painstakingly installed the three biggest submersible pumps they had in the shop, 2 big 20,000 litres per hour Messners and a 10,500 litre Blagdon Torrent. This was last August and they were installed in such a way that they would be impossible to nick and that was when the pool was half empty. Now it was over a metre deep and guess which pump had failed out of the three? The hardest one to get at and also the British pump, the Blagdon Torrent.
Despite having body waders on up to my armpits, I still manged to get completely soaked from head to toe..After a couple of hours I did eventually manage to extricate the pump from the complex net of wire, slab and blockwork hideaway. Then grunting from pure abject frustration and incapable of speech I took the pump that supposedly had a 3year guarantee back to the till at the shop. 'Arthur' was behind the counter, the man a wise man, who knows more than he says and what he does say he is sure about.
"Don't tell me, a ten five hundred?" He said without even seeming to look at it.
"How d'you know that?" I grunted and snuffled.
"Seen a lot of them." He said. "The others seem alright, but not them ten five hundreds"
"I'll get another," I said "Just in case it was out of a bad batch."

Now if a pump, or anything you are making, turns out to be crap, dont you think you would stop making it? I think perhaps there are not quite enough duff pumps, that dont see out their guarantees, to make that manufacture of that particular model unprofitable. It is more profitable at this stage to keep churning out the crap than go through the expensive process of making sure that the pump is more reliable. Blagdon pumps are trading on their good name, they have one of the best pumps ever made in their range -albeit German design for a central heating pump. Also if you say a pump has a three year guarantee, it is like an advertisement expressing a certain level of quality. This last 'qualification' alone will encourage more purchases than the bad publicity generated by a few returns of one pump model.
It reminded me of the time when the famous Blagdon Amphibious pump had been on the market for some time and I suspected there had been a change in the methods of production, particularly of the larger models. At the time I had just built a very elegant fountain pool in a very uppercrust house in a small village 30miles away and I wanted a super-reliable pump to run the fountain. Naturally I installed the Amphibious because its reputation for reliablility was second to none.
However to my dismay the client rang me up three days later to say that the fountain had ceased to operate. I couldn't believe it and I was out there like a shot. Sure enough the pump had seized. There had seemed to be a slightly raised area like a staple under the metal on what should have been a perfectly smooth motor facing and that was causing friction and then seizure.
I took the pump back and got it replaced without any trouble and drove back (60 mile round trip) to replace it.
3days later the client rang again - siezed again, replaced it.
3days later the client rang again - siezed again, replaced it.
This happened 4 times. On the 5th occasion I rang the factory to find out what the **** was happening. I got hold of the production manager, who I knew pretty well at the time (and hopefully he has moved on to better things). He said I must have 'got a bad batch'!
"What? No there is something more than just a bad batch. You've changed something in the manufacture process that is probably cheaper or something." I moaned.
" Listen Pete," he said, "Between you and me, right?..."
"Yeah."
"If we save say 10percent in the manufacture of a product, and say it means there are 5percent more returns, who wins in the long run? Its pure economics."
" You dont, your reputation goes down the Khyber! It's common sense. In the end you sell less pumps than the next company, believe me. And anyway I want a pump that is going to work like all the others did before you made your so called improvements."
I got my pump and it carried on going until the rubber on the cable perished with old age fifteen years later. Also the funny little raised bit disappeared from the pumps and the price went up, but their reputation was preserved and they still sold like hot cakes. People will pay for reliability. There are also other people who will also go for the cheap option. But in the world of cheapness , there is always someone who can undercut you. Reliability comes at a price.

Over Easter Inspiration: How to learn how to build a stream or a water fall

One of the the main frustrations of being an expert in anything is that that people are always desperate to pick your brains in regards to your subject of expertise. Although you cant begrudge any advise, particularly if it something that is obviously wrong and needs fixing, it is something that in the ideal world you would want to be paid for. This sort of consultation was going to be what you aspired to, and when you eventually acquired a pedestal of almost guru status as you were approaching your dotage, you could earn aliving just pronouncing wise dictats and let everybody else do the hard work. This is particularly important for us ex-landscapers, who, with all the occupational problems of grafters of the soil, cant keep going for 12 hours a day like we used to. So I know how to make natural landscapes and I am no longer fit enough (nor do I have the inclination) to wrestle with tonnes of stone or wheel barrow loads of soil hither and thither.

Even when I used to have a team of blokes to supposedly help me out, when it came to building a rockery or a waterfall or even a stream, no one would take on the responsibility of placing the stones. It had to be old muggins here.
"We dont know if we are getting it right until we've finished.And if its all wrong its too late to do anything about it..... We cant see what it will look like like you can.....Your the master craftsman.....A real artist...." and other such drivel was what I had to put up with and then have to get stuck in wiht the resultant bad back and erupting piles.


This Easter I took some time off visiting my inlaws down in Pembrokeshire. The weather was kind and as usual we spent a good deal of time down on the beach at Manobier. Its a beautiful beach popular with surfers and families alike. Quite typical of many of the small cove like beaches in Wales, there is a small stream or river rattling down through pebbles onto the sand and into the sea. This stream is a delight to kids that are leaping around with pebbles and boulders tying to dam the flow of water and making amazing effects with the inexhaustible supply of stones and pebbles. Here were landscapers and engineers in the making and here was the perfect opportunity for anybody who didn't know how to build a stream or rockery, to learn. So all you pathetic inexperienced water gardeners who cant bring themselves to lift the first stone for your natural creation, get yourselves down to a beach like Manobier or Aberporth (that's another good one), and get your hand and eye in. It will make all the difference and give you the confidence to get cracking. If anyone gets this far in reading this blog, send in any other suggested beaches with similar facilities and we can possibly make a directory of "places near you to practice building streams and waterfalls.

Is this a Water Gardener's nightmare or heaven on earth

TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND THE ENTREPRENEURIAL, ALL NAMES OF PEOPLE AND PLACES HAVE BEEN CHANGED OR OMITTED.
The time has come to reveal what has to be revealed. When it comes to landscaping water gardens the majority of the work involved is moving dirt. I think of my head gardener at Goldney Hall back at the end of the 70s when I told him I was going to leave the garden and set up as a landscaper. He said:
" You dont want to be a landscaper, that's just movin' bloomin' dirt all day!"
And God he's right. Now over 37 years later the back is dodgy, the knees are worn out, the hands are prone to seizing with arthritis in the cold and piles are always a threat lurking in the background. And what's it been doing, moving dirt and splashing around in foetid mires.
He also said that his Father used to say to him; "No matter how much edumication 'eve 'ad, once you've got those puddies dirty, you'll naver get them clean agin." Which is a way of saying that once you are in the rut of manual labour, you will find virtually impossible to get out of it. And so it has been.
Here I am, I've had people working for me. Six blokes at one time. I've done prestigious winning gardens at Chelsea and other shows, I've made videos, been on TV, written six books on water gardening and still I'm back on the tools. I hoped at one time that I could just write about water gardens, but no. AS soon as I got involved and started to make a name for myself in that world, the remuneration deminished to such a dismal amount I had to go back on the tools. Besides all but one of the magazines I worked for either folded or went bust.
So here I am at a Water Garden centre in the west country. The same company, although different owners, that I was working with back at the beginning of the 80s. My first job as a self-employed landscaper was to design and build a whole string of water gardens that would be an inspiration to the customers that came to buy water garden building products, plants and fish at the Water Gardens aquatic centre.
Back in 1981 a single family, we'll call them Robertsons (after the jam makers) owned a small water garden or aquatic centre. The original proprietor Yorke Robertson, had a son, Arbuthnot, whose ambitions that knew no bounds. And so it was that within 3 years the business had grown so much that it could not be contained in the small converted farmyard in the village of Blogland and so they bought an old nursery 3miles out of Blogland to Landblog. Here I was commissioned to build a series of ponds that would be typical of certain styles that may be of inspiration again to the customers, but also they had to be big, big enough to draw the people in as they flashed by on the main road that ran past the nursery.
This was the development that would take up a lot of my time in construction and subsequently maintenance and has given me the opportunity to see what really works when it comes to water gardens. I have built every single style of water garden there is at this place, using every bit of kit that there is available. And so I know the pros and cons of everything that has ever been made, a lot of it having been 'researched and developed' here back in the 80s. If you dont believe me, well read on as the this blog progresses, because as time goes on , I will be rebuilding and repairing all of these gardens. Some of them. now well over 23 years old, have already been repaired over the last year or two. Many of them are still thriving after all that time despite having been left derelict for the best part of 10years. And that's a story in itself.