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| Materials for my fountain |
Last week I spent a few minutes organizing my bookshelves and found some books on water gardening I'd picked up for a dollar at the thrift store. I've always wanted to have a water garden. Something about the sound of running water is really soothing. A little research proved that it's not very expensive to start one. So over the last couple weekends, it happened.
I started with at trip to the hardware store. Everything I needed is shown in the photo above: fountain pump, planter bowl, drill (to widen the hole in the bottom of the planter so the cord would fit through), rocks to hide the pump, and of course water (not shown).
I started with at trip to the hardware store. Everything I needed is shown in the photo above: fountain pump, planter bowl, drill (to widen the hole in the bottom of the planter so the cord would fit through), rocks to hide the pump, and of course water (not shown).
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| Fountain pump. |
The pump I got came with a couple different nozzles to change the spray pattern for the water. Not all of them come with it. There's also different sized pumps depending upon how much water you want to move and how high you want to make it go.
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| Enlarged hole for the pump's cord. |
Step one was to enlarge the hole in the bottom of the pot so I could run the cord for the pump through. This isn't exactly necessary, but I thought it would make the finished fountain look better. I had a rubber plug already fitted around the cord to make the hole water-tight, but not all of them are that way. It is also common to use some sort of sealant to close up the hole around the cord.
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| Pump placed in pot and hole around the cord sealed with rubber plug |
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| Initial finished fountain |
I didn't like the way it looked with just the rocks in this photo because the pump was still visible. I found a wire basket at the dollar store, cut a hole in the center and placed the overturned basket over the pump. This keeps the rocks from blocking water flow to the pump and reduces the amount of rocks I need to hide the pump. I added more rocks until the basket was no longer visible.
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| Finished fountain! |
I'm planning to eventually add plants to the fountain. Until then, I think this will work fine. I have been running the fountain almost once a day and draining the entire fountain and cleaning it to prevent algae from growing.
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| Fountain in the corner with (L-R): Geranium, White Oxalis, Citronella plant (far back), cactus garden, Purple Oxalis, and Asian Jasmine. |
Due to all the turmoil that goes along with a new job, I haven't been able to spend time running rescue or doing paramedic-y things other than working on the re-certification process. Re-certification has to be done every two years in order to maintain National Registry certification. There are a bunch of different topics that you need to receive training in, for a total of 60 hours of training. I have about 8 months to complete 5 hours of training. Easy enough. Until I get back into the field on my own as a medic with my new job, it's time for more garden therapy. Until next time...
