Garden lighting

Hello again,

It's now the beginning of autumn, the traditional time to look at installing garden and landscape lighting.

Garden lighting is a fantastic medium and can be used in so many different ways to create a range of fabulous effects. 

It can be used all year round creating views from the house and to create a lovely atmosphere when sitting or eating outside in the evening. It can be used for practical purposes to guide you around the garden or for security. It can be used to create longer views or a backdrop to the garden, to link in with the "borrowed landscape" and to add a focal point in a view. It can even be used to guide the eye away from a less desirable view, something that cannot be done during daylight hours.

Why not light an individual sculpture, illuminate a pond or water feature, silhouette architectural shapes or to build ambient light levels around a dining terrace - the choices are endless.

There are also many choices when it comes to what type of lighting to install. Traditionally, gardens have been lite with halogen light fittings which were able to provide warm tones of light, good light levels at a reasonable cost. However, over the last five years LED lighting has now become a viable alternative to halogen lighting and has a number of significant benefits including low heat, very long lamp life and even a colour-change option.

When it comes to the fittings themselves, the choice is huge; uplights, downlights, wall lights, flood lights, aluminium, copper and stainless steel fittings, remote control, colour change LED, strip lighting etc - the list goes on and getting some advice can save a lot of time and hassle.

More recently, solar lighting has flooded onto the market and in theory, seems to be a good idea ie a garden light that doesn't need and switching, cabling or labour to install it. In practice though, solar lighting still cannot produce enough light to be useful in a garden lighting context. They can be used along a path edge as way-markers but cannot realistically be considered as part of a garden lighting scheme.

Most importantly though, when having a lighting system installed, is to ensure it is installed properly and the component parts are professional quality, durable and robust. Don't be tempted to buy cheap products because they will prove to be a false economy and they will fail, probably much sooner than you think.

At Waterwell, we source and test the right product for your garden and we ensure you can rely on every component including the switching, the cables, junction boxes, transformers and the light fittings. After all, there is no point in investing in good quality light fittings if one of the components between the house and the light is inferior because any lighting system is only as reliable as the weakest component.

That said, it doesn't mean you have to spend a fortune buying the most expensive light fittings, you can achieve fantastic results with entry-level light fittings but if you wish to "go the extra mile" and upgrade to superior fittings then the choice is yours.

If you would like to discuss garden lighting then email Nick Ryan and he will gladly help you. 

Until next time...

Horatio's Garden

Hello again...

Over the past year, but mostly in the past month or so, we've been busy helping with the building of Horatio's Garden at the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre in Salisbury.

This is going to be a stunning garden, built for the benefit of the patients, staff and visitors to the hospital.

The nature of spinal injuries is that they are usually sudden, often catastrophic and certainly life changing and on top of that, the rehabilitation can be lengthy and difficult as the patients come to terms with a new way of life. The garden has then been designed to enable the patients stay in touch with the elements of sun, wind and rain as well as enjoying the sights, sounds and scents of a garden during their time at the hospital.

The garden is being constructed in memory of Horatio Chapple, a young man who was planning to study medicine and had already done some voluntary work at the Spinal Injuries Treatment Centre (where his father worked) before being tragically killed in an accident whilst on a British Schools Exploring Society trip in Norway.

Horatio's Garden has been designed by Cleve West who has, for the first time in Chelsea Flower Show history, won the coveted "Best in Show" accolade for two successive years. He has brought all his talent to bear and designed a fluid garden that meets the needs of the patients and is a hugely positive place for patients, staff and visitors to spend time.

Until next time...

Come and see us

Hello again,

This Saturday, we will be at the Society of Garden Designers Spring Conference which is to be held at Imperial College, London.

If you are going to be there then do come over and see Nick and Tom, who will be there all day.

They can show you how to beat the hosepipe ban plus all the ins and outs of LED lighting and remote control for garden lighting.

Until next time...

£7.7 billion annually on maintaining gardens?

Hello again..

That's right, British folk really do love their gardens and collectively we spend £7.7 billion per year on maintaining them and part of that spend is on garden furniture. 


Garden furniture has been around in all shapes and sizes since the 18th Century and over time has been developed in all sorts of materials including wood, stone, rattan, cast iron and more recently, there has been a move towards man-made materials.


Currently there is a lot of choice of furniture on the high street and on-line but I have to say that there isn't much innovation. Go down to your local garden centre and you will see the same products time and time again - perfectly good furniture but mass produced and uninspiring none the less.


At the other end of the spectrum there is a market for bespoke, one-off furniture for those who see garden furniture as art or for whom originality and exclusivity are important factors.


At Waterwell we have always had a really good understanding of customers' likes and dislikes, what is on trend and what suits a London garden. Also, having been in business for over 20 years we have built a pretty useful contact list of the best furniture designers, sculptors and artists around the UK.

We have always acted as "go-to for gardens" advisors for our customers and have been helping them in an ad-hoc way for years by showing them who they might like to use and just as importantly, whom to avoid.
So, for the first time we are acting as the middle man to enable innovative and creative people to showcase their product on a dedicated page on the Waterwell website. 


The best designers, made to order products and most importantly, they can be adapted to fit the space perfectly. This is not off the shelf product or bespoke product, this is Waterwell product, perfectly suited to your garden.


Until next time... 

Our "Cloud" update...

Hello again,

Over the last year we have been moving Waterwell to "The Cloud". 

We set out on this course with a view to providing a better level of service to our customers whilst saving the business money and time.

I had previously researched the idea about 4 years ago but at that time the choice of software was limited and the risk was too great. Since then though, things have moved on rapidly and when I revisited the options in the second half of 2010, I was delighted to see the possibilities unfold.

We set ourselves a challenge of introducing, testing and refining our Cloud within a 12 month period with a view to getting rid of our server before the end of 2011 if the project proved to be a success.

Initially, we introduced the iPads and our choice of CRM software to just the Maintenance Engineers who, in their work, have to visit over 500 customers in a short period of time in the Spring. We developed a simple Job Sheet app that the Engineers populated when they visited a client and was then automatically stored directly in the client's account, on the cloud. 

Buoyed by this success, we have now broadened the use to everyone in the business, everyone uses and Ipad (with iMacs in the office) and we have now introduced an accounting package to work in harmony with the CRM package. 

The reality is that when a new customer calls the business, their details are securely keyed directly into the CRM package, emailed plans are also stored along with the estimate, acceptance form, details of any customer contact, photos and anything else that relates to the client or the site. Product can be ordered via the iPad and sent to site and then, when the job is complete, the invoicing completes the cycle.

In terms of results. From a customer point of view, the Engineers have all the information at their finger tips and can answer any questions immediately. From a business point of view, because the Engineers don't now have to come into the office in the morning we have gained about 15% productivity and the guys are happy that they don't have to sit in traffic all day long. 

We are now completely committed to working with iPads and on the Cloud and we won't be turning back. For us, this has been a win:win and if you were wondering, we got rid of the server just before Christmas.

Until next time...