This is one of the easiest and classiest types of fountains you can create yourself. Of course, this fountain is unusually large for most average yards. Regardless, you can alter the size and elements to work almost anywhere. The style and element choices are unlimited.

The idea is simple. There is a small reservoir made from a round pre-formed pond liner placed underneath the vase. This is where we place our water feed and float and a pump that pushes the water to the top and then spills over the edge of the pot back into the reservoir.

As I said, this fountain and surrounding area is part of the cul de sac landscaping project that we’ve been working on. If you check out the design, you’ll see that this part of the yard was never drawn with the rest of the plan. And since it wasn’t planned and has been put together rather quick, I don’t have much detail on its creation. Just for reference, it’s about 30 feet left of the sidewalk over the driveway.

Since this pot is so heavy, it needs some good support. It sits on a framework of cemented blocks covered by a very heavy guage coated metal sifting mesh. And under this is where the pre-formed pond and mechanics are. The vase itself is created specifically as a fountain and only holds water in the top few inches of the pot. It would be way too heavy, unstable, and impractical to have to fill the pot up before it flows over the top.

While I can be fairly sure most of you reading this will never create a pot fountain of this size, some of you may want to make a smaller version. If so, you can find pots and vases for fountains like this in some home centers, decor shops, and pottery specialty shops.

As you can see, we’re using the same materials that the home and fence are made from. While a pond or fountain isn’t necessarily an element that needs to match it’s surrounding hardscapes, this one is a hardscape that’s unified with the rest of the landscape.

From a design standpoint, you may have noticed that this pot and fountain is way out of proportion for its area. See Principles Of Landscaping for more on proportion.

The fountain is as tall as the fence and for now, taller than the Itallian Cypress against the wall. There wasn’t a good selection of Cypress this year. However, if you know anything about Itallian Cypress and how tall and full they get, try and imagine this fountain in a few years with that back drop. Oh ya. That will look cool.

I’ll be posting some more videos and pictures as we finish up the rest of this design. Of course there will be more plantings and color around the pot and in the landscaping. However, as with most landscaping and garden plans, we’ll have to wait a few years to see what it will really look like.