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Summer
2010 Offer:
Free Design
Consultations within 25 miles of the M25
Please call
020 7183 3333 or email us to book.
More info...
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Hello and welcome to gartenART Natural Swimming Ponds. We are the leading company in the design and
construction of natural swimming pools and swimming ponds in the
UK, having built over 50 swimming
ponds
since 2004. Most of our swimming ponds are in the south east of
England, but we also build ponds all over the UK as well as
internationally.
A
natural swimming pond
or natural swimming pool
is specifically designed so you can swim in pure,
clear water with no chemicals. Its design can range from
formal to entirely natural, and it is all at once a practical
swimming facility, a beautiful landscape feature, and a wildlife
sanctuary.
Natural swimming
ponds have the advantages of conventional swimming pools, but also look
beautiful and respect the environment, offering a fresh and vivid
display of nature in your own garden. They are the next step in
man-made swimming facilities, combining design, an understanding of
how ecological systems work, and the very latest
in bio-technology to produce one
of the most innovative and complete garden features available.
Most of our
customers come to us because they want a beautiful landscape
feature which they can also swim in. Our customers usually
have beautiful garden settings, often in the countryside,
and they want to enhance this setting, rather than detract from it with
a conventional swimming pool. We can produce both natural
and formal designs, but more and more our speciality is in
natural designs.
Our
technical speciality is producing clean, clear swimming water using
natural purification methods. We also carry out
swimming pool conversions,
and pond/lake restorations, but
our main work to date has been designing and building natural
swimming pools and swimming ponds from scratch.
If you are
interested in swimming in a beautiful, natural setting in your own garden,
please browse our site.
In
particular we recommend visiting our
gallery
which
will give you a sense of the different types of natural
pools we have built
and what we can offer you. Our customer testimonials
page also tells you what it is like to own a natural pool.
If you would like
to receive our brochure or if you have any
questions please call us on +44 (0)20
7183 3333 or email us.
For press
enquiries please call Rosie Inge of Churton Inge Associates on
+44 (0)1749 670070.
We hope you enjoy
your visit here.
What are natural swimming
ponds?
Natural swimming
ponds are a prime example of
how we can harness nature’s intelligence efficiently. They eliminate the need for chemicals and constant cleaning as their biological self-cleansing processes
are completely effective. Surplus nutrients and impurities, as well as
harmful bacteria, are transformed by plants and natural water
organisms.
Because a
proportion of a swimming pond's space can be devoted to aquatic plants, it is as
much a garden feature as a pool and can be admired year round without
the need to be covered at the end of summer. It is constantly alive
and evolving, changing with the seasons, and even maturing over the
years, allowing the plants to grow into their habitat.
How do natural
swimming ponds work?
Clear, clean water
is the naturally occurring state in ponds and lakes if the body of
water is large enough and deep enough, and natural swimming pools are
purposely built to emulate this state.
This is the basic
difference between a natural pool and a swimming pool – a
conventional pool uses chemicals such as chlorine to kill bacteria, whereas a
natural pool works with nature to cleanse the water organically.
A natural
swimming pond can look like a natural garden pond, but it actually consists of two zones – a deep, central swimming area, and a filtration area containing plants which help to purify the
water.
The basic principle in a swimming
pond
is to use the natural purifying properties of plants and
micro-organisms to sustain a clean and healthy eco-system. In
addition we also use specially-chosen shingle in the filtration area
which absorbs certain nutrients. By keeping the levels of key
nutrients low and in balance, algae is not able to grow and the
result is clear, clean and healthy swimming water.
Can I convert my conventional
swimming pool?
You can also
convert your conventional swimming pool to a natural pool,
keeping the original swimming area (or altering it if you wish)
whilst adding a small filtration area to enable natural
purification of the water. Or you can keep the existing
structure of the swimming pool and create the two areas inside
it. You can see examples on this site of both
internal conversions and
external conversions.
What about restoring my pond or
lake?
We can also
convert your pond or lake to a natural swimming pond. This is an ideal way of
cleaning up and enhancing the attractiveness of your
existing water feature, while at the same
time adding the function of being able to swim in it.
See
this example of a lake conversion
we recently completed, with "before" and "after" photos. |