Make This EASY, FAST, DIY Water Feature for Local Wildlife!

do you think my husband would kill me if we just built a pond in my backyard today just like without him knowing do you think he would be upset if he just came home and there was a pond in the backyard because I kind of want to hi I'm Daryl I'm a sustainable Landscape designer and I help clients all over the country transform their wasted and wasteful outdoor spaces into functional beautiful landscapes but sometimes when you do something professionally you don't take the time to actually do the work for yourself which means I myself have a yard Unbecoming of a professional this is the year we fix that so this summer I'm partnering with garden for wildlife to spread the word on native plants and transform my Salt Lake City yard into a sustainable landscape and a native wildlife habitat certified by the National Wildlife Federation I'm taking you along with me every step of the way so follow along to watch my yard transform thanks for watching yeah I saw this great YouTube video where it's like a one day Pond and it's like a three foot by three foot circular liner that you basically just put into the ground and then you get the pump going you get the aquatic plants in the aquatic plants are doing their thing and now you have a wildlife habitat and a source of water for all of the pollinators and birds and whatnot and maybe even amphibians depending on where you live but I think I need to at least consult my significant other who I live with before I start digging Pond holes in our backyard so maybe we'll start with a bird bath recirculating Fountain as our water source this time but next time we'll do that so we did not end up doing a pond at least this time maybe next time but we did end up making this absolutely incredible fountain that I'm so excited about because it is Affordable it is easy like two hours maybe three hours Max and you have this really custom beautiful fountain in your yard and we have placed this between native plants happily growing in my yard so that the critically endangered native Wildlife can come and enjoy it in the shade and have the drink that they need to you know survive which is important so I should go ahead and note that this this beautiful Fountain is brought to you by Garden for wildlife who are our amazing Partners who are helping me transform my yard into a certified wildlife habitat they provide native plants shipped to your door soon to be Nationwide but for right now anywhere east coast to the Midwest so if you want to do a quick little project like this get your water source for your habitat in your yard and then put some gorgeous amazing beautiful native plants around it Garden for wildlife is really where you should be looking to do that because they're making projects like this possible and the content that I'm making for you possible so thank you so much we're transforming my yard into a certified wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation and one of the key requirements is that you have a water source for pollinators and this can be anything from a large pond or a little Pond or a fountain or even a bird bath that you just fill up daily with water so there's really a bunch of levels of accessibility that you can have for making your water source but because I live in Utah and it's very very hot I tried just doing a bird bath and filling it up with water daily but the water was evaporating so quickly and it wasn't staying cool enough to really be beneficial to Wildlife so we decided to Embark upon a little DIY journey to do a recirculating fountain water feature sort of situation that bubbles up and lets both the bees and other small pollinators and small birds drink as well as larger birds so we visited Utah Water Gardens to get some pumps and tubing and now that I'm here I actually just want to put a whole pond in my backyard so we're gonna maybe talk through that but maybe to stay tuned for a later video for the whole Pond and we'll just start with the bird bath this time uh but that's what we're doing today we're gonna go put that all together so stay tuned for the project a lovely employee helped us pick out this stationary fountain pump it was really inexpensive it was 38 and this one was actually more and bigger than we needed because they were out of the 80 gallon this will actually recirculate up to 130 gallons which is more than we need for a little fountain or bird bath but the investment is fairly low the brand just so you're aware of what we're using is Little Giant Pond Works we're at Lowe's and I found this glazed ceramic pot that I really like they had cheaper options that were like plastic so you can definitely do this on a budget you can also be scrappier and you know Salvage pots you have at home plates you have at home and whatnot so you don't have to buy everything new if you're on a budget here but I really like the setup with this big glazed pot as the reservoir that's going to be recirculating the water so this isn't the lowest budget of projects because we're just buying all of this new at Lowe's but like I said you could absolutely recycle just plates and pots and planters that you have at your own house and it would be free the best part about deciding to just buy everything in stores that we're basically playing really elaborate Legos so we have the large Basin we've decided to do a downward facing one there this is a slightly different design that I think is really pretty we're doing that like this which gives us a slight height difference and now we are actually just going to do these two tiered saucers so that's boom one we found this guy this guy's a dollar fifty if you have anything at home it would be free that guy kind of face down like this this guy on top we'll put some decorative rocks around the outside here to kind of Disguise that and a little bubbler right there and that's the that's the fountain it's done while you're here at the store you're going to see a lot of terracotta pots or maybe you have some at home that is going to absorb and leech the water so even if you are doing terracotta pots make sure that the outside is glazed so that you're not actually losing water through the pot too evapotranspiration here is everything that you need in order to DIY this Fountain but again keep in mind that we bought some stuff that you could probably just Salvage from around your yard so we actually spent more money than you need to spend first thing we bought were these two masonry drill bits this one is only as large as it is because they were out of this one in this size so again we spent more money than you need to spend this is the 5 8 inch masonry bit and this is the one half inch masonry bit and we're doing that because the connector we have is 5 8 on one side and half inch on the other side goes without saying we need did some silicone sealant in order to connect all of these things together and make it watertight this one is clear we bought this half inch rubber tubing this is going to be what runs through the entire Fountain as well as this connector which is 3 8 on one side and three quarter inch on the other it fits perfectly within this half inch tubing just like that to secure the fitting to the tubing we bought these little metal connectors we have the pump we talked about earlier it is helpful to bring this with you to the hardware store so that you know everything connects well last but not least we have the actual Fountain which we are constructing out of these glazed terracotta pots you do want to make sure they're glazed or at least if you get the unglazed kind that you use a sealant or a latex paint in order to prevent evapotranspiration because terracotta is quite porous and will absorb the water and you would end up having water evaporation from the outside of your pot and that's just silly we don't want to do that this is really a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of situation I know for a fact that I'm going to be making more of these throughout my yard just using pots and containers I find in Salvage you do not need to to go to the store and buy everything new but I liked that it was pretty and it matched so I ended up just splurging on it this large pot here you can see these four big holes in the bottom that are meant for drainage if you're planting a plant in here obviously if this is our reservoir for our recirculating bird bath and Fountain we don't want that to happen so we ended up buying these little nylon plugs we would have bought rubber stoppers which were available in the same section however they were sold out of the size that we needed these will work just fine with a little bit of the silicone sealant this is really like we said a Choose Your Own Adventure as far as how you want this to be set up we decided to do one the large pot as the reservoir and then set up small pots stacked in order to create height here so this guy is going to go down here and then this guy which has a slightly more ornate design is going to go like this giving us a little bit of difference in height between here and here which I'm really excited about and then this plate will be the larger Basin for the bird bath we're going to drill using the drill bit right here and then this small plate is just creating a slight tier so that we can have a more open area and then a deeper area as well for water we ended up buying just this little black plastic saucer in order to prop up plate one on top of plate two it's going to look so cute can you imagine just like the bubbling I'm so excited I think that's everything it's all you need under 200 and that's when we bought the expensive drill bits that we didn't need to necessarily buy we bought all of this brand new if you use pots you have lying around it could be almost free you're going to spend between 30 and 50 depending on what type of pump you get on the pump and a couple of bucks on some plastic tubing and some connectors and that's about it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] the pump here is now just set right in the bottom the pot is going to disguise all of this cordage this is a submersible pump so make sure that if you're doing this method where it's a recirculating fountain that you are not doing a pump that's not meant to be underwater because this is going to be underwater the whole time so that's going in there then this guy is going to go directly on top and down in the center you'll notice that we used the drill bit to drill some holes on either side because water needs to get in here in order to get filtered up to the top of the fountain so this is then just going these pots are really hot in the sun okay so this is going just down like that and what ended up working really well I wish I could say we planned it and that this wasn't just luck this pot just fits absolutely perfectly in the bottom of this planter because we need to be able to service every single element of this Fountain like if the pump goes out under there we need to be able to access it we can't seal any of this into place so this just needs to sit here completely unsealed unsecured and you can see it's pretty stable in there and it's not wagging around so that's perfect but it'll be super easy to access the pump if we ever need to continuing on this one is going to go the opposite way like so so easy so gorgeous lined up I think that's good we don't want it to wobble too much there we go perfect so we have this uh kind of tiered Plate System that we've already set up okay metal clamp goes on first super easy and then that just gets screwed in nice and tight as every Suburban dad would say that's not going anywhere hahaha she's hot we do have a little a lot of extra actually cordage here because we want to be able to service all of these different elements without necessarily undoing all of this so we're allowing for a lot of slack that way I could take this off set it down get to this take it off like slide it up access the the one below and so on so that's why we have extra there that gets all fit in there oh it's gonna be so good I think that's about perfect and then once it's all filled with water it's going to be pretty secure we're gonna give all the silicone about 30 minutes to finish setting up and then we're gonna try her out two three three a little warm yeah okay I'll step over all right foreign landing pads for pollinators since this is a little deep we want pollinators to be able to actually land and drink from this water actually I'm really excited that this lip here kind of can serve as a landing pad for pollinators as well but we're also going to be adding some little White River Rocks and some marbles to the top okay that's already looking really cute then we need the marbles all right marbles are going in you ready that is exactly what we're looking for there's landing pads and places for pollinators to land besides having to try to float in the water or hover above the water so any little bee or little tiny butterfly could actually land here and then safely drink from the fountain that's perfect these rocks are going to do the same kind of thing and also disguise the little plastic tray foreign [Music] don't be afraid to make adjustments we're going to add a base of aquarium rocks to the bottom and then put these on top for looks just so that we can have more landing pads for pollinators so that'll be like the base and then we can put the marbles on top for loops foreign so if you are wanting to certify your yard as a wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation this is a requirement not this one specifically but having a water source for pollinators as well as small mammals and birds is a requirement because it's hot out here and they need something to drink so what was really amazing about this project is that it came together in an afternoon I don't even want to say a day I mean I think we went to the first store at 11 30. it's early afternoon now and we have a completely One of a Kind custom looking water feature for under 250 dollars and I really do want to specify that it's 250 dollars with us really not budgeting in any respect if you were willing to to scrap together pots you already have order some stuff online it would be a third of that maybe a quarter of that so this water feature is going to serve as a drinking source for critically endangered native Wildlife but it's important to note that you also need to be planting native plants nearby so that not only do they have the Water Source but they also have sources of food nectar pollen and so on so what do you know right here we have some purple coneflower echinacea this is native to much of the United States we also have some sunflowers that are about to bloom they'll probably be blooming in a week or two sunflowers where I live in the western desert Eco region are a keystone species so they are critical for not just pollinators but also Birds because the sunflower seeds are sources of food so my hope is that the birds are going to come they're going to snack on the sunflowers they're going to have a little drink of water the bees are going to come they're going to snack on both the sunflowers and the coneflower and then have a little drink of water what's also great is that this spot is relatively sheltered from the hot sun with both the sunflowers and I have an arbor over there that are going to create shade here for most of the day which will prevent evaporate and also prevent any of these stones from getting too hot because we don't need to cook them when they come and have a little drink so I'm really just so excited about this this was so quick and so easy and so rewarding because we just we're like we're gonna do something today and we went and we did it and it's done and that feels really good it feels really really really good okay bye [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: yardfarmer

Views: 123,569

Keywords: permaculture, sustainable landscaping

Id: Kn7KQAMlHdI

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 15 2023