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This month marks the launch of a new patent-pending pondscaping product from PondSweep Mfg.: The Endless Cascades line of pond filtration and waterfall technology. Ultimately versatile, Pond Sweep President Gary Wittstock spoke with Lawn & Landscape and emphasized his excitement about this new offering to the landscape and water feature market.
“This is really a breakthrough in waterfall design,” Wittstock says, referring to the formation of the Endless Cascades vaults. “These waterfall vaults are completely uncut and whereas normal watefall boxes in our industry are produced with a certain sized opening, contractors can use the Endless Cascades products to custom design any sized waterfall they want. Whether it’s a wide, winding falls or a very narrow horsetail waterfall, these boxes can be custom-cut to offer endless possibilities.”
The Endless Cascades product line contains two sizes of waterfall vaults, each of which has two different sized openings, Wittstock explains. “You can purchase the box based on how wide a waterfall you want, but the design of your waterfall isn’t necessarily limited by that” he says. “For example, The EC1218 has space for a 12-inch opening on one side and an 18-inch opening on the other side. Also, the upper lip of the boxes can be cut to create two falls that run perpendicular to each other, so with the placement of rocks and plants, you can essentially create two waterfalls from one product.”
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Wittstock says he’s eager to see the unique waterfall designs that come from contractors using the new Endless Cascades product. “We really feel this will dramatize how people create and use their water features,” he says. “Some people didn’t like being forced to pick a box that they had to use for their application, when they may have had very unique ideas in mind. For instance, no one sold a waterfall box with a 2-inch opening, but now contractors looking for that type of product can create their own.”
Originally built out of wood for testing purposes, the trapezoid-shaped vaults can be placed side-by-side and sealed together, offering the ability to create waterfalls of unlimited widths and in more configurations than can be enumerated. Additionally, individual vaults are designed to serve as platforms for overflowing vases and other types of standalone water features, and also can be turned upside down to serve as sump-pump vaults for pondless water features.
With the vast number of combinations, distributors of PondSweep’s Endless Cascades products may feel they’ll need to stock a tremendous amount of inventory. Not the case, according to Wittstock. “Depending on how much inventory they already, we anticipate that by carrying the Endless Cascades line, an Authorized Distributor can reduce their inventory by 25 to 66 percent,” he says. “The Endless Cascades vaults only come in two sizes, but those two sizes offer an infinite number of waterfall widths, so the distributor doesn’t need to carry all the models their customers may have required in the past.” Wittstock says the marketplace will dictate whether Endless Cascades replaces any of Pond Sweep’s other vault models, but currently all of the company’s products are still available.
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“We’re really excited to see the response for the new product line and we think it will really provide a lot of creative opportunities for our customers,” Wittstock says. “During a meeting we held last year with a number of master pond builders, we heard feedback that told us this was the type of product that most of them were looking for. As a focus group, we worked together to develop wooden models as a classroom exercise and during the year, we created the molded models from those prototypes.”
The design process took a bit longer than expected, which delayed the product launch from July to September, but Wittstock expects the feedback to be good. Indeed, he’s encouraging contractors to take high-quality photographs of the designs they develop with the Endless Cascades product and prepare to submit them for a design contest soon.
The Endless Cascades models EC1218 and EC2436 (with a 24- and 26-inch opening) are available for $379.99 and $549.99, respectively, with discounts available to Authorized Distributors and contractors. For more information, visit www.pondsweep.com or to locate an Authorized Dealer, call 866/754-6766.
