Tim and Jeanne Camp of Frontier Ponds in Union make it their goal to provide customers with quality water features, and education on how to properly maintain them.
Frontier Ponds, based out of the Camp’s home at 5218 N. Union Road in Union, offers pond design and installation; landscaping; brick paved walkway and patio installation; and custom water features such as Pondless waterfalls, ponds with streams, bubbling rocks, urns and fountains and retaining walls.
The Camps initiated the business in Addison as Frontier Landscape, a lawn maintenance and landscaping business in Nov. 1992. In 1997, the Camps decided to move their business and family to Union so they had to room to grow. In 2005 they only installed landscapes and water features, said Jeanne Camp, president and owner. In 2007, they changed the business name to Frontier Ponds, and their main focus became custom water features.
Frontier Ponds has a construction crew of five workers that will travel within 100 miles to install the water features.
The Camps also run an aquatic store out of their home.
“The reason we opened the aquatic store is so that we can service our customers once we installed the pond,” Camp said. “We offer aquatic plants, fish and any type of water treatment they might need to help keep their pond ecologically balanced; (such as) fishnets, fountains, pumps and other supplies.”
The Camps use the motto “Work with Mother Nature, not against her,” to educate customers on maintenance.
“You don’t want to throw a whole bunch of algaecide in the pond to kill off all the bacteria and all the algae because it’s going to come back twice as much,” Camp said.
Though there is no minimum or maximum size pond the Camps will install, larger ponds are easier to maintain and harder to see algae forming than a smaller pond, she said.
“A lot of contractors just slap in (water features) and leave,” said Tim Camp, vice president, pond designer and installer. “They don’t offer (proper education and maintenance) services. About 60 percent of our jobs are rebuilding water features that other contractors or homeowners have installed improperly.”
To further educate customers and other pond owners, the Camps initiated the McHenry County North American Water Garden Society, which offers a free membership.
NAWGS holds meetings at 7 p.m. every fourth Thursday of the month and has about 30 members. NAWGS will also be involved with the Chicagoland Pond Tour on July 7 and 8 in McHenry County and offered on other dates for other areas. The tour is a free event that offers over 200 pond locations available for viewing to all interested. This year, the tour is holding a drawing to win a pond.
The Camps and their five children also educate the community through “Build-A-Pond” days in which the family teaches schools how to properly install a water feature. In April, Frontier Ponds and crew taught fifth graders at Prairie Grove Elementary to install a Pondless waterfall.
Frontier Ponds is also a Certified Aquascape Contractor, one of only 299 in the nation, which specializes in installing water features. Aquascape is North America’s Largest Pond Manufacturer and supplier in the Water Gardening industry. They continue to take classes to educate themselves on new water feature trends and aquatic life, Jeanne Camp said. As for future goals, The Camps said they would like to open a garden center with an enjoyable atmosphere, offering ponds, various supplies, aquatic life and a picturesque background for wedding or prom photos. In addition Tim Camp would like to keep the business alive to pass on to his children after he and his wife retire.
Frontier Ponds Aquatic Store is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.
For more information on Frontier Ponds or NAWGS, call Tim or Jeanne Camp at (815) 923-2480, or visit www.frontierponds.com. For more information on the Chicagoland Pond Tour, visit www.chicagolandpondtour.org.
