Yahoo! It’s 2019. Happy New Year! At the stroke of midnight, I was thinking of all the resolutions I will make in 2019 — NOT. Whether you’re a resolution person or not, I know one thing that’s on the minds of all pond professionals’ minds out there: more ponds in 2019!
Here at POND Trade, we’ve already got an excitingly busy editorial calendar for 2019, with our third annual Water Artisans of the Year contest results coming out in the next issue. Stay tuned and prepare to be wowed!

But first thing’s first, as always. We’ve got another robust issue for you with nine features to educate and inspire your waterscape operations. Personally, I was really interested in Ken Rust’s article on pond and people management [LINK here]. We all know that living on or near a body of water generally raises property values, but what happens when the body of water is a total mess? Before you start pointing fingers at the pond, often the culprit is a homeowner’s association or other group of people who are mismanaging the pond’s upkeep. Ken’s article just might inspire you to get to the bottom of an unkept pond or lake near you.
I also thought the fire and water table that inspired “Fire on the Water” by Shane Hemphill [LINK here] was incredibly riveting. I mean, who would’ve thought that combining a dinner table, fire pit and water feature would have turned out so flawlessly? Mixing the elements is a risky venture, but Shane and his team show you how it’s done right.
Ben Plonski is back in our Language of Koi segment with a discussion of koi sleeping disease [LINK here] ( and how to diagnose and treat it. Unless you’re a koi expert, odds are you haven’t been privy to a lot of this information, so you’ll definitely want to check out Ben’s feature.Finally, if you’re looking for marketing inspiration, turn over to Greg Wittstock’s article on video blogging (“vlogging”) [LINK here]. Anybody can record a YouTube video, but not too many vloggers have seen the success on this particular platform like Aquascape has over the past couple of years. This feature just might make you consider adding vlogging to your repertoire!
Happy PONDering!