I don’t know about you, but I’ve been having a really good summer. It’s the first time since the pandemic that I’ve done some business travel. I popped that mask on, jumped on a plane and flew to Kansas City to visit Powell Gardens with International Waterlily and Water Gardening Society (IWGS) members Susan Davis, Deb Spencer and Justin Titus. The next day I attended the Greater Kansas City Water Garden Society’s “Puddle Jumping” Pond Tour. A few days later, I met up with John Magyar in Atlanta for a photo shoot to accompany his article about maintaining Shaquille O’Neal’s pond a year after the build. John also took me around to see some of his other projects. It was a whirlwind tour of fun, but it felt so good to be out and about again among my colleagues in this wonderful industry!
Speaking of artisans and their projects, you might have noticed that our sixth annual Water Artisans of the Year contest is open for your entries once again. This year’s five categories are: Best Pondless, Best Under $15k, Most Naturalistic, Formal Ponds and Fountains and, new this year, Rock Artisans! If you design or build features, it’s time to start sorting through your photos and project specifications from this past pond season and prepare your best work for early submission. The holidays will be upon us before you know it!
>> Bookmark the 2021 Water Artisans of the Year Entry Form!
As autumn knocks on the door, we’ve got a packed issue full of new content for your reading pleasure. We regularly talk about the effects of ponds on us adults, but we’re stepping outside the box and taking a look at ponds for children and ponds, and for hosting dog-jumping competitions. Clearly, man, woman, child and dog can each reap their own benefits from the pond life. (As for cats? The verdict is still out.)
As a plant lover, I also particularly enjoyed Becky Turpin’s article about planting creatively in and around the pond. Take a gander at her collection of clever shrubs, trees and greenery that you can integrate into the blank canvas that surrounds the pond.
Big and Bold Website Redesign from Pond Trade
Pond Trade Magazine is at it again, as we updated our website design to make it easy for readers to find pond articles, features, gallery spotlights and pond videos within our big and bold design. The new design increases the size of the pond application images, delivers a lightning-quick page load times, instills a clean design aesthetic and will automatically format Pond Trade content to your device: smartphone, iPad or computer.
Plus, we’ve kept the navigation and design familiar, so readers should be quite comfortable finding content. Enjoy and feel free to bookmark these pages.
Happy PONDering!
