Garden Fountain {Patio}

When we visit my parents' house, I love the sound of their water feature.  Theirs is a good size pond with waterfall and frogs, and the works.  No way am I installing a pond and my dad is constantly threatening to bulldoze the whole thing because it's so hard to keep the water clean (or even semi-algae-free).  I even had the perfect spot in mind near our back steps, just off the patio.

I had seen some DIY garden fountains on various blogs, Pinterest, and websites.  I came across a couple of references to these instructions, and decided to go for it.  I took a client to HomeGoods a few weeks ago for an accessory shopping excursion, and of course, had to go back immediately afterwards to buy some of the amazing pots I saw there.

Here are the basic components -

• 2 or 3 pots (if they are not ceramic, or something sealed from water, you'll need to spray seal them with Thompson's Water Seal)
• Fountain pump (available near the indoor plants at Home Depot)
• About 12" of tubing (also near the pumps)
• 2 or 3 filler pots (either plastic or other pots you have on hand)
• 2 bags of river rock
• tube of silicone calking

I'm not going to rewrite Martha's directions but here are some basic pictures of the process.

And here's the final result...

Fortunately we have an outlet on our porch where I could easily plug the pump in.

We've had it going for a few weeks and I have to add more water about every 3 or 4 days if we have no rain at all.  The pump will automatically shut off if it's too low on water.  Fortunately (?) we have had so much rain that I have only filled it maybe 4 times.

It does not make quite as much noise as I would like.  I may add another pot next year which would increase the trickling sound.  If my top pot had a lip on the edge, I think there would be more trickling.  But, I love the sound when we are sitting on the patio eating dinner or hanging out in the backyard with the kids.