Timeless and Treasured - My Three Girls: July 2012

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Water Feature - Sister Style

Don't you just love this garden water feature? This is my sister Karen's garden in Minnesota. Having a sister is such a blessing - one that you don't always fully appreciate until you are much older. There are five of us siblings all together, but Karen and I seem the most alike. We love all the same things, we often even buy the same things half a nation apart! Karen is an incredible gardener, and inspires me in that area. After coming home from our trip to her house, I decided to install the very same water feature in my yard.

I didn't get a true before picture, but there used to be a huge bush right where the hubs is standing, it was identical to the one on the other side of the steps - it was always getting way too overgrown so we decided to take it out. We used to have a small water feature in front of the bush, but we decided to make it bigger and better!

Banana always LOVES to work in the garden, and the hubs kindly tolerates my requests :)

Here are the pieces you will need to install this kind of water fountain. A large tub that you will dig a hole in the ground for, and a large garden pot with a hole in the bottom for your pump.

Dig a hole the size of your water retaining container. You will need a medium sized water pump - the one I got pumped about 250 gallons per hour. I used a 2 inch piece of PVC pipe attached to the pump and cut it off just at the top of the pot.

Putting sand under your bottom container helps to get it level - getting it level is the trickiest part. I placed two bricks into the bottom container with the pump in between them, then set the large pot on top of the bricks with the PVC pipe coming out of the pump and up through the pot - I spray painted the PVC pipe black so that it blended in well. I used plumbers putty at the base of the garden pot to seal off the place where the pipe comes up through the pot - you can also use plumbers epoxy for this, but I actually prefer a more temporary seal so that I can take it apart for annual cleaning, etc. After the main parts are in place, we added several layers of strong chicken wire bent over the top of the bottom catch basin. This allows you to place rocks over the catch basin disguising it so that it looks like your fountain is simply overflowing. On my smaller fountain I used a grate off a grill - get creative with what you can use to cover your basin.

Having puppies to admire your work is a bonus :)

I absolutely LOVE the sound this water fountain makes - opening the door every morning to that sound and the sweet smells of summer is simply wonderful!

So far this water feature has been very low maintenance. I top off the water in the bottom basin every few days or so when I'm out watering the flowers.