Company Profile

 

Mission Statement

Fins & Flowers Water Gardens integrates the soothing and relaxing allure of water into our client's living spaces by fusing artistic expression with an environmentally friendly design approach, high quality products, knowledgeable  staff and superior workmanship.  

Introduction

Since 2002, Fins & Flowers Water Gardens LLC has been dedicated to educating consumers about water gardening while providing quality products and excellent service to area water gardeners.  Through the years, that commitment has not wavered even as other installers chase the lastest "hot" outdoor living trends instead of staying focused on the water garden market.  Steadily Fins & Flowers has established a reputation for being a reliable source of water gardening knowledge and experience with this web site functioning as a means of sharing information with fellow water gardening enthusiasts.

Educational Background 

My personal roots in water gardening developed during my youth as I raised and bred tropical fish and aquarium plants.  I furthered my knowledge base by studying relevant subjects such as Biology, Advanced Biology, Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth Science in high school.  My college years then yielded a Bachelors Degree from the Indiana School of Business with majors in Management and Marketing.

Career Background

After seven years in the auto body shop business, including five years of owning and operating a classic car restoration shop, I decided to get away from the chemicals, fumes, dust and other health risks associated with body work and seek an outlet for my love of raising plants and fish.  Fins & Flowers has been the perfect opportunity to work in an outdoor setting while pursuing a profession that demands craftsmanship and attention to detail.

Location

Over the years, Fins & Flowers has outgrown several locations and ultimately ended up finding a home at Ag Plus in New Haven.  Our present location includes 1800 square feet of greenhouse retail and display space, additional outdoor storage area and room for future expansion.  In addition to Fins & Flowers water garden plants and fish, Ag Plus carries a full line of water gardening accessories and supplies such as pumps, liner, filters and skimmers.  Along with the rest of their landscape and gardening products, a visit to Fins & Flowers and Ag Plus is truly a one stop gardening center.

Design Philosophy

What differentiates Fins & Flowers from our competition is a focus on environmental sustainability.  Your water garden should be designed, built and operated in a way that ensures a minimal impact on the environment.  Areas of primary concern are water consumption and conservation, energy consumption, biotic diversity and the utilization of long lasting quality components.  Thus a Fins & Flowers designed water garden yields a blend of aesthetic form and efficient function that creates an ecosystem closely mimicing nature while requiring less invasive and disruptive maintenance procedures than that of the typical "gravel pit" pond. 

Industry Involvement 

While Fins & Flowers is my business, water gardening is my passion.  And I have begun to share my passion with the entire water gardening community by writing for various publications and web sites.  So far I have been fortunate enough to offer my experiences and observations with readers of the Water Gardeners International Online Journal, the IPPCA's Pond Pulse, Irrigation & Green Industry magazine, the Victoria Adventure web site and various koi and water garden club newsletters.  Through these writing opportunities I have been introduced to many other contractors and water gardening enthusiasts, thus enabling me to continue the learning process while striving to make a positive contribution to the water gardening community.

Is Bigger Really Better?

For those not already familiar with Fins & Flowers, it is quite often a surprise to discover how wide a range of projects we handle without being a "big" operation. From the beginning, our focus has been on completing each and every job with a high level of quality and professionalism instead of striving to see how fast and how many installations can be churned out each season. Therefore Fins & Flowers aims to grow one customer at a time, creating long term relationships with each of our clients. This approach keeps our focus where it belongs...on meeting and exceeding customer's expectations, not on growing the business into a large scale operation.

By operating as a smaller organization with a lean overhead structure, our bids remain extremely competitive even though we provide much higher levels of craftsmanship, customization and attention to detail than our competitors. Plus Fins & Flowers understands every water garden is as unique as the individuals that enjoy it so we don't resort to cookie cutter installations using pond kits or pre-packaged systems.

Finally, because our growth occurs primarily through positive word of mouth and from referrals, we value all of our customers equally, regardless if they buy only one hyacinth each spring or contract for an extremely large project. At Fins & Flowers, it is not the amount you spend that matters but whether our products and services provide the best value for your hard earned dollars. Maybe if all businesses operated with similiar principles, we would not end up with companies that are "too big to fail".