All Garden Pots » DIY http://allgardenpots.com A practical guide to container gardening. Sun, 01 Aug 2010 06:52:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 en hourly 1 Make A Fountain From Three Garden Pots http://allgardenpots.com/make-a-fountain-from-three-garden-pots/ http://allgardenpots.com/make-a-fountain-from-three-garden-pots/#comments Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:52:05 +0000 Don R. http://allgardenpots.com/?p=74 Even though the idea of fountains being made from garden pots is nothing new, I stumbled upon a method of building one that I hadn’t seen before. And, I think this fountain would make a wonderful addition to any garden and its so easy to build that anyone can do it in a short amount of time. The first thing you need to do is choose the appropriate pots. One will be used as the basin to catch the water coming down. The next is a base and then the largest pot is used for the main fountain. When you are choosing the shape for this pot, keep in mind that the function is just as important as how it looks. A slightly tapered pot that is smooth will be very quiet as the water tends to cling on to the sides of the pot as it falls. Pots having ridges or rings will cause the water to splash into the basin causing more sound.


You start with a large sized terracotta or stone bowl as your garden pot foundation. This will be the basin pot where the overflowing water will fall. Drill a hole out of the bottom center of the bowl if there isn’t one already. Now take the cord from your pump and run it through the hole. For larger holes, cover with duct tape and fill with a car body filler. Smaller holes can be filled in with silicon. When that has dried, coat the inside with a water sealant. Now you should be ready to place the basin in your desired location. Although not crucial, try to make the basin as level as possible.

The base is a pot that is turned upside down and houses the pump. Choose a pot that has a base diameter the same as the base diameter of the main fountain pot. Soak the pot overnight in water. This helps make it easier to cut notches around the top rim of the pot. These notches allow water to come in that gets pumped up through the fountain tube.

Cut a piece of tubing about a foot longer than the height of the fountain pot. Attach this to the pump. Now feed the base pot down over the tube through the hole in the bottom of the pot. Seal the gap around the tube with more silicon. Now you should have your basin with an upside down pot sitting in the middle of it with a pump inside and the tube sticking out the top of the base pot.

Now take your fountain pot and test fit it by feeding it down over the tube and placing it on top of the base pot. If everything looks good (it should be plumb and level with the tube sticking out the top higher than the height of the pot) you can take off the fountain pot and run two thick beads of silicon around the top of the base pot. Run one bead towards the outside to help hold the pots together and one on the inside to keep water from running in between the two pots.

When it is all dry, test it by filling it with water. Adjust the height of the tubing to get the desired effect of the water bubbling up. Finish it off by filling the bottom basin pot with rocks. Enjoy your beautiful fountain!

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