I’m going to start with a photo of the finished product—a fountain that has been years in the making. Specifically since May 20, 2001, when the magazine for which I previously worked ran a gorgeous photo of a similar fountain on the cover of its special garden design issue. I’ve been obsessed with this fountain ever since, and so two summers ago when we put an offer on the house we now own, I immediately went about securing this concrete pot. It’s from San Marcos Growers, and weighs, oh, about 250 lbs. Loading it into the trunk of my old Audi wagon did about $500 worth of damage. So add that to the tab. I will spare you the fight my husband and I had driving this thing across town, me curled up on my back inside the pot in the trunk in order to stabilize it. (Yes, you read that right.) Or the intricate system my husband devised involving a friend’s Dora the Explorer kid’s table and a goose-down duvet in order to roll the pot out of my car and onto a safe landing.
And then there it sat, untouched, in the disaster of our new backyard for almost two years, collecting leaves.
Until last week. We finally decided to take the plunge and deal with the backyard, centering it on the fountain. The fountain is surrounded by 4 feet of gravel, the same gravel as on the paths in the front, and we’re planting a perimeter of rosemary around it in order to keep Tiny G out of harm’s way. (I can’t wait for the rosemary to thicken into a dense shrub!) As you can see, the pot is a BEAST. It took our landscaper Felipe and two other pretty damn strong men to lift and level it.
I’m so impressed by how Felipe brought it all together. There is a layer of fine mesh atop the plywood, which keeps the gravel from falling in, but allows the water to trickle through to the tub beneath and recirculate so that water continuously spills over the fountain edge (much like an infinity pool). It’s dreamy. And so calming. Now I’m on the hunt for some vintage French metal garden chairs to place beside it for a sunset drink. How pleasant would that be?
