Gartenart

hi Tim uh thank you for joining us um I'm not going to give you too much of an introduction because I would love it please if you can introduce yourself and and your business uh okay so uh my name is Tim Tim Evans uh Garten art swimming ponds we've been going for 21 years uh I started with a German guy called Ralph hence the name garton art um so he had a landscape company in colone he moved over here was trying to get swimming ponds going this was around 2002 2 2003 I joined him in

2003 we started up as a business and he left after five years and I've been running it myself since then so kind of similar to what you were saying Nick in terms of size and kind of I don't know about the growth story but I mean we've been a sort of gradual growth we've got 20 people now um definitely in terms of where we're trying to position ourselves we try and position ourselves at the sort of Premium end of the market although I don't know how however other people have found this but we found in

the last 12 months Co years are really good but the last 12 months has been a bit tricky and the order books come right down um and we're thinking of maybe introducing a different price point which is lower um it's a question of whether we keep the same brand or not that's I'm just sort of saying this openly now but you know do we want to what do we want to say we're going to be offering a lowcost pond when we've got the Garten art ponds or you know or do we we keep them as

a sort of separate message um so that's something that was probably coming uh well it is it is coming um but in terms of what we build as swimming ponds I it's a fairly small industry there's not loads of us uh there's probably I don't know three four five main companies doing it in the UK uh and we tend to specialize in the more naturalistic style so there are some who' build them with sort of straighter lines or some are more pool-like some use a lot of Timber ours are quite Pond likee um when you

say natural swimming ponds assume that we know nothing what do you mean so I say what swimming Pond is so swimming Pond is basically and and when I say swimming Pond I also mean natural swimming pool so for me the two words are interchangeable not for everybody but I would say that they're the same thing um and and what that is is a low nutrient Wildlife pond so everything is completely living we're not killing anything in the water although some people do some people use UV and other things but but our filtration system works by

keeping the nutrient level very very low so what that means in particular is phosphorus so we're targeting phosphorus and having that in a very low concentration so when water is like that it will be very clear and you'll have very minimal blanket weed growth that's what you're aiming for you know in any swimming facility you want the you want the water to be healthy and you want it to be clean they you can see straight to the bottom yeah um and you don't want you know in a natural pond you I mean in my view

you can put up with some blanket weed around the side or some growth and some fur on the walls but not too much and of course everyone's different some people are much more tolerant of that and some people want it squeaky clean so our product isn't for everybody as well that's another and or you might want to have you know different sing pong companies or natural pool companies will might build a different style that be more suitable for for a certain type of customer so ours is much more Pond like much more organic and we

deliberately focus on that type of product and and in that sort of type of customer to be honest so do you find then because as you say I suppose it is slightly Niche um do people your customers do they already know about natural ponds swimming ponds or do you have to do a bit of Education first that's a good question I mean I that's a good question I think if they're coming to us they've got to know something so you know if they're coming to us they must have seen our website they must have seen

some marketing or whatever or or talked to us in some way or or read about it and some form so so I I think I think by the time they come to us they know something um I mean they might have had mixed messages because inevitably we need a we need ideally a more standardized industry inevitably different companies say different things um but generally speaking they know something um and you know if I'm if I'm standing on if we have a stand at Chelsea flasher every year so so we haven't built anything we they want

to build something but the guys want to build something I'm not convinced anyway um so we we have a stand at Chelsea uh Chelsea FL show and and everyone kind of ask the same question so what is the swimming bonds which and the answer is kind of what I just said I mean a bit more than that um how much does it cost um um always they say isn't it too cold rather than can you heat it is it is it too cold so no um we always say there sort of my sort of standard

answer to that is always try for season first and see what you think so you can heat it um temperature is definitely not the issue people think it is right now on a day like today and this time of year water temperature naturally is going to be about 22 is quite nice natural water is quite nice 22° um anything above 20 is quite nice if you're a climatized 14 15 16 is totally fine and and and being a climatized is a strange thing it happens actually quite quickly which is why we say try it for

season first and see what you think anecdotally when I I have a s Bond now it took me a long time to get it but I had one now and when I went swimming in it in August I was thinking Jesus I shouldn't have followed my own advice I should have got heating it was like and and it was the middle of August and then you know after few weeks fine with it and that and that happens that you know there's a process in the body where you you know grow Brown fat and all these

things but you get used to colder water and you really start to like it that's a massive growing Trend as well isn't it yeah lots of health benefits yeah the cold plunges that you see nowadays so do you find like your your client is typically someone that is quite mindful about their sort of health and you know live that sort of more natural lifestyle and look after themselves and that's definitely the way we sort of Market it and brand it um or or or I suppose some of it's implicit but I suppose I suppose yes

but not definitely I mean you can yeah I suppose mainly yes um so our you know our our me our core Market or our core customer will be generally speaking probably 40s 50s or 60s obviously got to have some money and and decent space generally living in the countryside qu I mean a lot of our projects are in aoms um so so a lot of them have to go through planning permission not all um though that's easier actually with a natural yeah with a natural P definitely definitely easier building building some po yeah much easier

yeah um you know generally home counties but not always you know goes to you know quite a lot in the cotwell quite a lot in the southwest um not so much in the north I have to say um but we do operate all over the UK even though we're mainly home counters um and and in ter and answer your question yes so they they mainly customers mainly have some sort of awareness and interest in organic products and and lifestyle so swimming Pond is it's a li it's a lifestyle product so so so it's something that

looks beautiful I think that's that's a it's something that is not very it's not that ostentatious it's not like a a swimming it's not like a blue swimming pool oh I think I think they're beautiful it's something that is it's something that's lovely to swim in so so we always do open days and try and get people in the water because because you have to really be in it to really experience the difference between fresh water I mean if you go wild swimming then you kind of know it but but but even though even The

Swinging p is different because it's sort of you know safe version of that um so yeah there is and you know so so people are sort of in that direction of doing things organically and and looking after their health but they generally they're sort quite lowkey quite soft around the edges if that makes sense you know not sort of I want this and that yeah can you tell us a bit about those open days you it looks like you've got them all around the country ah not near here though I don't think I missed the

one that was near yeah in time was that was a few weeks ago so there n On's near tring in hartfordshire um you're very welcome to come um bring the swimming gear uh so so open days really are just a chance of people to come and try one out and and we and as I said we definitely encourage people to swim uh and on a day like today it's obviously great we do although we have started this year doing ones in the winter as well because it's like you say it's a growing interest in cold

water swimming so this year we did ones in February April early June uh this is the second one in July we're doing one in August we're doing one in October so I think I missed one but anyway like roughly that so and so it's mainly at the pond that I have now in tring and n tring and then we did one in Tom near Tom Welles we're doing one near basing Stoke um that's the one I missed um and yeah they just a chance for people to come and have have a look and chat to

us and fully experienced yeah and and definitely get in because people don't know what a swing Pond is people you know people just don't culturally we don't have enough of them for people to really you know know we all know what pool we know what chlorinated waterers like we know we all know what salt waterers like but we don't know what a swimming Pond's like so so that's why we do it really and to give people the to give people the confidence that it's okay because I think still you know we 20 years ago we

were trying to get awareness growing and two things awareness and confidence that it wasn't actually going to be something that worked because a lot of people just think it's going to be a slimy mess um so so you need people to come and have a look and talk to you and see probably a few examples or talk to people and have the confidence in you I think to say just realize it work and see it after it's been established for a while yeah so the one in the one a couple of weeks ago in in

near T Wells we we built that 12 years ago so that's quite a good example of you know what they can be like how do you manage you out is it all the plots of the plants will completely filter the pond Pond and keep it clean with it yes so how it works so the maintenance of it so just so just step back a b say what I you know continue what I was saying before it's a low nutrient Wildlife pond so the biology of that is the same this is bit my Spiel that I

sort of say every time so it's kind of like a mountain lake same water as the mountain lake so when you go to a mountain lake the water is clear not because it's cooler but because it's low in nutrients because there very naturally very little going into it so that's what we're recreating and you need to circulate the water inside the system it's a closed system and nothing comes in from outside so so there's a French strain around the out side to prevent any runoff there's a skimmer tole collect any leaves be very careful of

topping it up with tap water very careful of ducks because they can make a mess um so those are the main things that might introduce nutrients um and that the plants do a job as they grow they take nutrients out of the water but they're not the main thing it's it's the main thing is the circulation through a type of aggregate that we have that takes phosphorus in particular out of the water um and different companies use different methods this they're all end up with the same result but they might say yeah we use this

you know special material and that you know takes phos out this way what but but but pretty much every main company that builds swing ponds targets phosphorus and they end up with low nutrient water and you usually some some companies use UV but most don't so then when it comes to the planting around the edge is that something that you also Supply as part of the package yeah we do everything from like from the from the fren the edge of the French drain in so so we yeah when we quote we quote for that um

and and say you know any turfing or seeding can be done by us but generally it's done by a local Gardener or landscaper or them and is are there quite specific plants that you do use yeah because it's it's more so the choice of plants is more about the plants that do okay in low nutrient water so some of those plants might do to work well in normal ponds so like in a in a village Wildlife Pond you might see you know a bit a bit overgrown you know your flag AR will be couple of

meters tall our flag IR are only a meter tall um so so it's it's plants that do well in that environment yeah and we' got I don't know about a dozen or 15 that we commonly use yeah and then I guess because everything is about the the state of the water and how much nutrients or what it's made up from are you quite specific about the materials that used to build the ponds yeah so you got to be I mean anything in water you got to make sure that you know the stone is impermeable it

doesn't crack and when it's cold and and the timber you know we use Douglas fur generally generally I mean same as any Landscaping rules I mean I I'm not a landscaper but you guys know better than me but you you know the the Tim that's under water is fine the timber that's on the you know dry is fine it's the timber that sort of hot you know sometimes wet sometimes dry that you you know after 10 years or so might need replacing or some of it might we use we tend to use natural stone for

our stone for for our step entrance tend to use Douglas fur or Oak for the timber um we tend to use Caledonian stone for the jumping rocks and Stepping Stones uh we we tend we we do use black EPDM liner for the liner um we we use a certain type of limestone aggregate for that for that shingle that I talked about that use filter the water through uh and then there's a whole filtration Network beneath that so then if somebody already has either a pond or a swimming pool can you use those it already exists

you can um we haven't quite cracked the sing pool conversion yet because it should be easy to convert with sing pool and just sort of take out the you know the the current gubbins in the plant room and then install our gubbins um we haven't cracked that one yet but when we when we do that that will be a very simple and effective way of producing a natural a natural normal swimming pool um at the moment we we have to sort of use our own filtration system um so generally it's easier to convert to Pond

to be honest it's perfectly possible to convert to SM but it's just costs a bit too much at the moment right um so so we either build from scratch or we convert or we convert an existing fond yeah and um you mentioned that obviously lots of customers come to you and they find you and obviously then they're almost pre-qualified they know about the product do you find have you ever partnered with say landscapers or designers does that work as a different way to get customers that's a good question we should I mean like I'm definitely

for that but we we we haven't really uh We've definitely had people say to the their customers whether their designers or landscapers you know have you know or they've or the customers have said to them anyway the discussion has gone you know we want a swimming Pond or how about a swimming Pond and they've come to us but we haven't had a sort of fixed sort of agreement partnership which we should do I mean there's no there's no reason not to do that so um yeah I mean we for sure we should develop it just

for people watching Tim what sort of price range are the swimming ponds and obviously you know they vary by size but could you give us a range of what what they typically cost so generally the smallest natural one we would do would be 12 MERS by 8 so 12 MERS length 8 meters width and you generally have a 2 meter wide planting stroke filtration area so therefore if it was 12 Long you'd have eight meters swimming length and if it was eight wide you'd have four M swimming width so that would cost if we were

to build that in our Garten artart way then that would cost about 140 140,000 uh and then if and then generally if you double the size you add 40 to 50% to the cost so so something you know are sort of normal price pointed maybe 180 200 something like that but like I said in the last 12 months we've found our order book massively reduced so so we're now int introducing this lowcost Pond where it's much simpler to build we've got a uniform depth so we just just dig out a uniform Bowl basically build a

um put the put the liner over that I mean obviously things to go under the liner uh put a timber frame on top of that uh you got to weight it down uh and then and then you have the aggregate filtration system going around it and we can build the whole thing in about five weeks rather than the 10 weeks that would normally take us to from start to finish yeah I mean if it's a small one we can do it an eight between eight eight and 13 we always try and cap it at 13

just put more people on the site if it's really big um so so yeah so that that low cost Pond will be around about 880,000 so as I've saying to others before we got to be at the moment we're not sure whether to have those two products sharing the same brand or whether to have them separately branded uh because we got to be confident you know because companies do do that they have a premium brand and a lowcost brand but we've got to be confident about the difference uh and how we communicate that so so

we've got two websites at the moment rather than and one's not one's under a different name called called EOS swimming ponds oh nice um do you find then that there are certain challenges or almost like red flags that potential customers might say that just pings off in your brain and think oh this is going to be one of those projects uh in retrospect it's very easy to say I mean at the time you the trouble is whenever you're selling a project you always kind of oh yeah might sell a project so because I don't sell

very many obviously that optimistic yeah um when they start talking about how much they love chaing I guess exactly I mean you can usually yeah I mean in in retrospect it's easy you can always say yeah and you always knew they were G to be really fussy I mean it's probably the same with anyone you know but at the time you don't quite see it or at least that's not my experience um and and and also I'm to be honest we're quite honest at open days you know we we we obviously we clean the ponds

for open days but we don't not don't do it to an inch of their life you know it's it's you know the type of customers that going to go ahead with us need to be okay with a little bit of yeah you know natural growth um and you know if they want something squeaky clean then they should go for a different product brilliant perfect I definitely need to look up the DAT for your open days they sound absolutely magical um so obviously you've spoken about the two the sort of sister business but what is on

the road map for the next couple of years for Garten well that I'd say is the main thing so um that and also we need to build at least one p we want to get started building a public a public one because there's you know every now and again you get interest from councils or hotels we've done a few we've done a few commercial ones um but they're generally the same size as our domestic ones so we want to we want to start building and get really culturally people more involved in you know understanding what

natural water is like to be in rather than we don't really have a lot we have a bit of a lighter culture it's g a bit not but not really in this country it's much more in if you go to places like Germany there there's a lot of natur you know public Natural Pools where 5,000 people go a day in this country is not that doesn't really exist I know we don't have the same weather um but that's that's something I'd really like to get going um keep the Garten art brand going as it is

and then build the low cost brand uh up to I don't really know where it can get to so brilliant brilliant thank you very much Tim that was excellent thank you thanks very much