Can I Fill a Fountain With Garden Plants?

Dry Fountain

• Fill a dry, unused or underused fountain with plants. If your backyard or another outdoor area has an unused fountain, you can make it into a large planter for your outdoor plants. One of the ways to do this is to fill the entire fountain with high-quality gardening soil. Fill up the fountain with the soil, and then plant flowers, herbs or vegetables in the fountain as you would normally do. If you choose this route, understand that you will likely never get all of the dirt out of your fountain, so only do this if you are fine with never being able to use the fountain for water again.

  Another option is to fill a dry fountain with plants in containers, boxes and pots. Fountains usually have a large amount of space, so you can get lots of different sizes of window boxes, pots and containers and fill up the fountain with them. This way, you can move the plants around, take out ones that aren't thriving and change the arrangement of your flowers as you wish to do. You can also eventually remove all of the plants and run the fountain again someday.

Water Fountain

• Put plants into a water fountain that has water already in it. To do so, you will need to choose water plants. Water plants that work well in a fountain include water lilies or lily pads and underwater plants like bamboo. Other plants that grow in the water include water hyacinth and Louisiana Iris. These plants can survive and thrive in a fountain. Fill the fountain with distilled water and be sure that there are no chemical residues in the fountain itself. Then, set the water plants inside of it. Understand that water plants will often cause moss and mildew to grow in the fountain, so once you decide to put water plants in your fountain you might never be able to get it as clean as it once was. If this is OK with you, a fountain full of water plants can be an excellent way for you to add beauty to your outdoor areas.