No chlorine and no salt. Nothing to sting your eyes, dry your skin or bleach swimwear. You get out and you do not need to shower it off.
Swimming in living water is a different experience from a chlorine pool. Many owners keep swimming into the cooler months for the cold-water benefits.
A natural pool works the way a healthy lake does. Aquatic plants and beneficial bacteria take up the nutrients that would otherwise feed algae, and water moves slowly and continuously between the planted zone and the swimming zone. Clear, soft water, held there by biology rather than a chemical routine.
There are no chemicals to buy and dose. Running cost is mostly modest pump electricity, which comes in below a chlorine pool of the same size.
The planted zone brings dragonflies, frogs and birds into the garden, on their side of the pool rather than yours.
A natural pool is made of three parts. Each does a job, and it is the three working together that keep the water clear. Leave one out and the system does not hold.
The swimming zone. Deep, clear and unplanted, built to the same standards as any quality pool. In our builds a submerged oak beam sits just below the surface, dividing the swim zone from the planting.
The regeneration zone. Shallower and planted, where aquatic plants and beneficial bacteria take up the nutrients that would otherwise feed algae.
Circulation. A low-energy pump moves water slowly and continuously between the two zones so the biology can do its work.
This is the objection everyone actually has. Green water is algae, and algae need nutrients. The regeneration zone removes them, but only if the water reaches it. That is what part three is for: steady circulation carries the whole volume past the planting, day and night. Plants alone treat the water they sit in. Plants plus circulation treat the pool.
Mosquitoes are not a problem. The water is always moving, and a planted pond fills up with the predators that eat larvae.
Maintenance is seasonal, not daily. Cut planting back, clear leaves in autumn, check the pump. No testing kit, no dosing.
It is as safe for children as any pool, and it can be heated. A wildlife pond is a different thing again, built for habitat rather than swimming.
If you are weighing a natural pool against a conventional one, the best next step is to look at your own garden. Book a free design consultation and we will visit, take measurements and talk through what would work on your site. No obligation.
