Are you considering having a swim pond built within your garden? Perhaps you are keen to understand how regularly you should be caring for your existing pool?

This blog explains how swim ponds work as well as offering professional advice and support on their installation and maintenance, giving you the opportunity to sit back and enjoy your garden sanctuary!

Swim Ponds or Natural Pools offer, in our opinion, the perfect garden paradise for swimming and being at one with nature. Individually designed to blend effortlessly into your garden landscape, to whatever size and shape you choose. It is a beautiful feature to enjoy throughout the seasons.

How a swim pond works:

Designed with 2 zones, the central body of water is for swimming, with smaller, shallower ‘regeneration’ zones at the edges for water cleaning. The regeneration beds comprise of washed gravel to promote healthy plant growth, whereas the swimming area is left bare to allow for complete water circulation.

A pump is fitted at one end of the pool to circulate the water, along with a skimmer to remove any film and debris from the water’s surface. The pump pushes the water through the regeneration zone back into the swim area. As the water moves through the regeneration zone the aquatic plants will filter out contaminants and nutrients. This helps to prevent algae and keeps the water clear, without the use of any chemicals.

Aquatic plants suited to regeneration beds come in an array of colours and sizes, to compliment planting throughout your garden. You’ll find a great selection available at our head office base, within Squire’s Badshot Lea. We’d be happy to help you with the selection if desired.

Caring for your pool:

For the most part swim pond maintenance is low effort and people often liken it to gardening. It involves tending to the aquatic planting and removing any debris from the swim area, approximately every 6-8weeks.

This is something you can carry out yourself, or a job that Broadley Aquatics can undertake on your behalf. Our knowledge and expertise will be to your benefit. We can check the functionality of the circulation pump and mechanical skimmer, check the condition of the plants and give the whole pool a quick once over with each visit.

Deep cleaning:

Longer term, the pools liner can be cleaned every 12months using a pond vacuum, without needing to drain the established water. Though this isn’t often necessary, as the pools skimmer will constantly remove any residue and debris from the waters surface. A skimmer is a key component to improving the water quality and avoiding excess build up on the liner.

We would recommend a professional deep clean only every 5-10yrs, depending on the pools condition. It involves draining down the pool, performing a thorough clean of all surfaces and materials, checking the condition of the liner, and servicing any mechanical parts, before refilling.

Maintaining our display pool:

Here you can see the natural plunge pool within our head office display. Built 5 years ago it measures 7m x 5m x 1.5m deep, with a double cascade waterfall at one end. The regeneration zones sit at opposite edges and a gravel filtration bed borders the plunge pool area.

It recently received its first deep clean, to remove the algae build up on the stone edges, refresh the gravel and service the waterfall. It looks fantastic!

Can we help?

In summary when it comes to swim pond maintenance there really isn’t a large amount of interference required.

A swim pond should mostly maintain itself, chemical free, offering you and nature, years of unspoilt, effortless pleasure. So that with our professional support to install and maintain, you can concentrate on simply enjoying your pool.

Please get in touch to talk with us about any plans you may have for the installation of a natural pool within your garden, or to discuss the regular maintenance or deep cleaning of an existing pool. We’d be happy to help.

 

22nd March is World Water Day, held each year to celebrate water and to raise awareness of the 2 billion people living without access to safe water. This year’s theme is Groundwater.

Garden groundwater is immensely valuable, and we all need to ensure we are using it sustainably. Protecting it to minimise its pollution, and storing it over winter for use during the drier months are two crucial steps we can take.

Installing a wildlife pond in your garden will not only offer you tranquillity, and provide a habitat for frogs, toads, newts, dragonflies and many other water loving creatures. But it can also filter groundwater, to help reduce pollution from reaching our rivers and streams.

Based in Surrey, Broadley Aquatics work throughout the South East, specialising in the design, build and maintenance of ponds, natural pools and water gardens. Our concession within Squire’s Badshot Lea features the UK’s largest indoor natural pool, yet we ensure it is only ever topped up using rainwater, collected from the roof and stored for use throughout the year.

We are passionate about the benefits and preservation of water, so get in touch today to understand how a wildlife pond could benefit both you and the environment. We we offer free no obligation quotes for pond design, build and maintenance and we look forward to working with you.

For more information on World Water Day, and what more you can do to protect our most valuable resource go to https://www.worldwaterday.org/