Gardening Pacific Northwest - Projects & Techniques

High Rise Bird Bath

A few years ago I saw an ingenious low-cost, assemble-it-yourself bird bath that I was sure would delight the multitude of birds in my garden. The base was a large terracotta pot upended, rim down, with a broad terracotta pot tray set on top. Stacked on the tray was a smaller upturned pot, with a smaller tray perched on it. A third layer could actually have been added with an even samller pot and tray. With water kept in the trays, the result is a good-looking two or three-tiered bird bath.

After experimenting for a while with assembling and using this style of home-made bird bath, I've found that I often streamline the affair by staging the single-tier version only. It's easier to keep clean than the double and triple-tiered style. And for the trays I use lightweight plastic terracotta lookalike versions. Clay is very heavy, and needs to be coated with a sealer (sold in garden centres) to render the tray watertight.

Though some gardeners may regard the presence of plastic in the garden with horror, I must confess that I've grown rather fond of my collection of fake terracotta plastic pots. They are light and easy to handle, everything I've grown in them has done wonderfully well, and I think they look just fine.

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