Garden consumers tend to be a conservative (with a small C) bunch and sales trends consistently show how traditional design outsells the contemporary in almost every segment. The water feature category has certainly been no exception to this rule and Kelkay report that naturally styled designs like Como Springs and novelty features like Bramble Cottage as consistently in their ‘top sellers’ list.


But, the team at Kelkay have seen the beginning of a style revolution this year which seems to suggest that consumer taste is shifting towards a more contemporary, modern look.

Richard Pyrah, Sales Director explains “We have always had a broad selection of designs in the Easy Fountain range to meet the needs of all types of consumer. But frankly, the modern styled products have never been our most popular sellers. Garden Centre consumers seem to mostly want to style their gardens in a traditional English look. But for the first time this year, we’ve seen some remarkable sales volumes and great repeat business on some of our newly introduced modern designs.”

For the 2017 season Kelkay introduced a series of sixteen new contemporary styled water features with prices ranging from £79.99 to £299.99. The star of the show is the beautifully sleek ‘Milano Cube’, inspired by the perpendicular symmetry of a classical Italian courtyard and built with a polished metal finish and sparkling LEDs.

“For the first time I can remember, a very stylish and modern design fountain has made it into the top 20% of the range” added Richard. “I think this probably represents a real shift in consumer trends and we will be looking carefully at how we develop the entire range and new products for next season in the light of this.”