Building a water feature…

Our back yard needed something.

Plants? Check!

Seating? Check!

Acre of cat net?? Check!!

Splishy splashy water feature? Nope!

So we built this:

I say ‘built’ but arranged would be a better word. The big aluminium tub was in my gran’s garage – it was there when she moved in and she had been using it to store old plant pots. I mentioned we were planning a water feature but needed an interesting basin. She said she had just the thing! Yay for free perfect things! Yay for gran!

I bought a cheap tiny pump from Ebay and the old water pump was £15 at the Knavesmire car boot last week. We probably overpaid but I knew the lady from visiting my Open Studio so it didn’t feel right to haggle. It was already plumbed as a water feature and the half circle board it is screwed to fit the basin perfectly. Go serendipity! The pump is hidden under all those pebbles and it only took 2” of hosepipe to connect it up.

A trip to the garden centre got us a sack of river pebbles, a couple of marginal plants, a few ferns and, erm, lots of other stuff we didn’t go in for. Damn their pretty, pretty displays.

We already had a hole drilled through the wall from where an old tv aerial had been so we could plug the pump in straight away. We thought using an old water pump would look a bit twee and it does but we don’t care, it’s lovely hearing the splishy spashy water. It was a lot cheaper than buying a ready-made one too and it looks like it’s been there ages.

Beccy