LIQUID ASSETS.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

YONCALLA - You couldn't very well picture your own slice of heaven without at least a trickle of water. You're going to need foliage, lush and beautiful and varied. And don't forget some form of animal life - something colorful, tranquil.

Think soothing. Think serene.

Think about a trip to Yoncalla.

David and Linda Houser have set themselves up in the business of helping people create their own private paradise. Their Wholesale Aquatics - its name notwithstanding - is probably the largest retail outlet in Oregon for aquatic plants, fish and pond supplies.

With inventory expanding and business nearly doubling each year since the nursery opened to the public in 2000, the Housers have positioned themselves to capitalize on a steep nationwide growth curve in backyard ponds and water features.

"We didn't get into this to be millionaires," Linda Houser says. "We wanted to offer an affordable product, and it just so happens we enjoy this.

"And it's really exploded. Whether it will maintain this momentum, who knows? But everyone wants a piece of heaven in their backyard."

Goldfish and koi, whether large or small, bargains or exotic. Water lilies, lotus, water hyacinth and marginals - the plants that create borders between soil and water.

Wholesale Aquatics has them by the hundreds, if not thousands.

"More than thousands of plants," Houser says. "I know; I weed them all."

The Housers have lived for 15 years on their Yoncalla acreage - 38 miles south of Eugene, 30 miles north of Roseburg - and settled in 1998 on a means of producing some income from it.

"We were both still working full time (at outside jobs), and started collecting the plants," Linda Houser says. "We were just building up our inventory before finally deciding to open our business - and finding out if we could grow them."

They could, they did and they do.

The Housers now feature more than 100 varieties of aquatic plants, propagating and growing all of them in their own greenhouses, ponds and tanks.

While she has focused on plants, he has added fish - ordering mostly from domestic suppliers and raising small goldfish and koi in tanks for a year or more until they reach more saleable sizes.

The plant prices range from less than a dollar to $25 or more, while goldfish start at $2.50 and koi - the Asian garden fish that can live for more than 100 years - range from $3.95 to nearly $100.

The couple also offer pumps, filters and the ponds themselves, whether preformed 200- or 300-gallon shells or 45-millimeter rubberized fabric that's made specifically as a pond liner by Firestone Building Products.

While the popularity of water gardening continues to soar in the Northwest, it has begun to plateau somewhat on the national level. Observers say that's mainly because so many ponds were built in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and a large part of the ongoing business is now in maintenance and resupply.

But those who try water gardening tend to stay with it.

"People are just starting to find that water garden plants are low-maintenance," says Greg Spiechert, editor of Water Gardening magazine, based in St. John, Ind.

"At first they think (the plants) are going to be on the order of keeping orchids, or real high-quality roses," Spiechert says. "Then they find it's more on the order of keeping weeds. You can't overwater them. Anyone can do it, and all you need is a container that doesn't have a hole in it."

The key to water gardening, according to the Housers, is filtration - whether mechanical or natural - and a balance between nutrients produced by fish and nutrients used by plants.

"Once you've got your balance going with your filter and plants and fish, they're all doing their job," Linda Houser says.

The most common mistake among new water gardeners is in keeping things too small.

"Small ponds - very small ponds - can actually cause more water-quality problems than a larger pond, because the temperature and pH vary so much," David Houser says.

"You've bought the filter and bought the pump. A little more (pond) liner is not going to cost you that much more."

For do-it-yourselfers, a starter pond and water garden can be set up for as little as a few hundred dollars for a preformed pond with a few plants, to about $2,500 for a typical thousand-gallon pond built with rubberized liner and stocked with plants and fish.

The Housers see plenty of room for growth of their business, with water gardening passing $1 billion in sales nationwide in 2001 and expected to pass $1.5 billion this year.

"Even the (conventional) nurseries are saying, 'We need to get into this,' because of the demand," Linda Houser says.

Paula Biles, executive director of the International Waterlily and Water Gardening Society, based in Bradenton, Fla., says this year is shaping up well for an industry that has seen few negatives.

"Last year, the weather was like really, really bad, and there was the war and the economy," Biles says. "We've been used to a double-digit growth for a number of years, and it was not great last year. But this year, the weather has been good and everyone has been absolutely ecstatic.

"So overall, things are good and the growth continues. People are still intrigued by water gardens."

In Oregon, Wholesale Aquatics has joined nurseries in Tualatin and Molalla as the state's primary retail outlets for water plants, pond fish and supplies.

The Housers decline to discuss their sales figures, but acknowledge that the expansion of their business has about doubled revenue each year - with similar expectations for 2004.

Probably the largest local player is Jim's Water Gardening of Eugene, but the 25-employee business operates on a wholesale stage rather than retail.

And many conventional nurseries - even the garden centers of big-box retailers - have begun stocking some aquatic plants and accessories, although prices and selection often lead customers back to the outlets that deal exclusively in pond goods.

"I know a lot of garden centers go in and out of it, because they don't have enough product or enough expertise to keep people coming back," says Spiechert, of Water Gardening magazine.

"I don't think that (competition) has hurt us one bit," says David Houser, at his Yoncalla nursery.

Wholesale Aquatics has been able to steadily increase its volume, with two large greenhouses - another may be on the way - along with outdoor growing space and a couple of display ponds.

For their fish, the Housers now have eight 1,000-gallon holding tanks, three 700-gallon tanks and six display tanks, in which sizes and varieties are separated by netting.

The Housers don't have any employees. He still holds an outside job as a low-voltage electrician, while she left her 13-year job as a legal secretary to tend the nursery full time.

"I think I said I was going to semi-retire," Linda Houser says. "Hmm. I don't think so. But I just love the outdoors, so this is like heaven."

WHOLESALE AQUATICS

Location: 1301 Cox Road, Yoncalla

Directions: Interstate 5 south from Eugene to exit 159, onto Anlauf Road. Parallel freeway on west side for three miles, turn left on Cox Road and cross I-5, 1.25 miles to 1301 Cox Road.

Public hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday through Monday

Internet: www.koipond.freewebsitehosting.com

CAPTION(S):

Wholesale Aquatics of Yoncalla, a retail outlet for aquatic plants, fish and pond supplies, has an expanding inventory of goldfish and koi. Linda Houser, tending to the fish in ponds at her Yoncalla home, left her 13-year job as a legal secretary to run her and her husband's aquatic business full time.