A dear friend recently celebrated a significant birthday which called for a gift up a notch or two from the usual cheesy trinkets I toss her way. She had often admired the home-made water fountain on my balcony; so I settled on the idea of making one for her.

She can’t manage storage for a large heavy pot like the one that forms the base of mine. Hence, I decided to look for smaller pots that would fit together and then disassemble for winter storage.

I gathered up parts from many places. The pump, two of the dish containers, flower pot and bamboo came from Golden Acre. I found the heavier vase-shaped pottery piece at the Crossroads market and a sack of polished black stones at Canadian Tire.

I cut the bamboo into suitable lengths with a handsaw and mitre box and lashed them together with garden twine that I had on hand. The piece of bamboo with the largest diameter became the spout which fit snuggly onto the plastic tubing (left over from building my own fountain).

You can find step-by-step instructions for fountain making in my earlier blog. From the picture, you can see that some of the parts function simply to make the fountain taller. The upper part, which is the heart of the fountain, could sit on a table top.

The Sunset book pictured above - our newest on the topic - includes a lovely container fountain on page 118 with a bamboo spout and a miniature umbrella water plant.

Recently, my friend told me that she has been rearranging the parts to give it more splashes, setting stones on the bamboo to prop up the spout. I like that. The best part about home-made fountains is you get to play with them.

- Jane