Help Needed Turning Dolly Tub into Water Feature

Lizbetty

Hi everyone!

We're selling our house, and so we're doing everything to pretty it up that we should have done years ago, just for someone else to move into it (eventually, we hope)! Our garden is fairly small and so we're making it into a sort of 'peaceful haven' stylie place. On the cheap..

Anyway, we have a big old dolly tub (my Granny's), and a small metal lion's head with a hole in it's mouth sat in the garden. Ideally we would like to have water coming from the lion's mouth into the tub. We have a power supply from the garage, so that isn't a problem, but I'm not sure what equipment we will need to get it up and running? We're hoping to have a water lily in the top, but keeping the water quality decent (ie it not stinking) is a worry. Plus we don't want to start drilling into the tub at all.

Does anyone have any ideas how we could get started please? My concern is that we rush out, buy a pump, spend money and time on it and then it end up a stinking pool of mosquito lava containing a dead waterlily and there being a really visible ugly pipe up to the lion's head. Call me cynical! :rotfl:

Thanks in advance for any advice. I have no clue where to start

Luce x

annie123

No idea how to do it, but a quick google of make your own waterfall brings up lots of useful info.

Could you not use the tub just as a pond? planted up with mini water lillies, water mint etc would look very nice.
You could also buy it a solar fountain around £20 on ebay which is useless in a big pond but would work fine in the tub.
Google http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&nord=1&q=tub+pond&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&ion=1&biw=1066&bih=739&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=hoRsT43nAoHT8gP57rG_DQ#um=1&hl=en&nord=1&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=container+pond&oq=container+pond&aq=f&aqi=g3g-S1g-mS3&aql=&gs_l=img.3..0l3j0i24j0i5i24l3.64680l70013l0l70229l17l17l0l1l1l1l497l2156l8j6j1j0j1l16l0.llsin.&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=6088de20bfd826d8&biw=1066&bih=739
they look really nice.

elsien

I have a water lily in a container pond - the water doesn't get pongy as I put aerating plants in, but I do get a lot of mosquito larvae.
Can't help on the practicalities, just wanted to say smelly water isn't inevitable.

Lizbetty

Thanks for the tips! :j

We've been busy this weekend and bought a pump - I did love the idea of solar but we really wanted to get it pumping through the lion's head, and the shop said they didn't have that option I am definitely bearing that one in mind once we've moved and we get a bigger garden though, I love the idea of a solar fountain!

It's all up and running, I'm just trying to find the best plants for it. As it's steel, I'm a bit worried about that affecting the plants and also any fish we put in there. I have read that it's best to leave it to dechlorinate for a few days before we stick plants in though so I have plenty of time to google the best ones for the job.

It's very echoey at the moment as it's just full of water - hopefully once it gets some nice things in there it'll stop sounding like someone weeing in a bucket :rotfl:

Thanks again for all you advice. I'll let you know which plants we get. All suggestions welcomed however! I'm not very up on pond plants at all. Also, if anyone knows whether the steel might affect a goldfish.. ? :undecided

Lucy x