Dan's Papers - June 5, 2009 - Earthly Delights

A client called a week or so ago as he had just found the perfect fountain for his mother's garden. This was supposed to be my assignment but in the frenzy of planting I had forgotten, so he got to have some fun shopping around.

We went to Marder's to pick it up - it took three men to get the three parts of the fountain on the truck. It's a simple 3-foot wide bowl on a pedestal with a ball in the center. Water cascades down over the ball and into the bowl. This is a self-contained fountain, with a small pump located in a round housing below the ball. The set up was really easy once it got placed since we had installed an electrical outlet in the garden in anticipation of finding the perfect piece. (A bank of Perovskia behind the fountain hid the outlet.) Once we got it settled and put back together we found that the diminishing banks of lilies, phlox, alliums, achillea, irises, salvia, pentas and lantanas created a colorful, embracing background for the fountain just as we had all envisioned. It can be seen from the patio and through the interior windows, as well as upon entering the garden.

The only problem was placing it in the existing garden. The fountain would be surrounded by flowers so that it appeared to float among the blooms. But the lady in question seemed to think that it was too low and that the flowers would obscure it. Also the water didn't shoot up high enough. Changing the pump for more power is a simple fix but raising the fountain itself was another matter.

It meant a trip to the stone yard for me, which I always enjoy. We had considered stacking blue stone under the fountain pedestal to raise it up as our primary choice. But in thinking about the color I found myself looking over the brownish sandstones instead - most of these were thinner than the three-inch thickness I wanted to prevent cracking, and I was beginning to dislike the idea of the stacked stone look since that part would be visible in the early spring before the tulips popped up, and in the winter when there was nothing around the fountain. I also came across a nice chunk of finely textured black and white granite, but that looked too new and refined. Finally at the back of the stone yard I stumbled across the most marvelous piece of stone. It was a 6" x 2' x 2' piece of weathered bluestone that really resembled the pedestal form that was floating around in the back of my mind.

And it weighed a ton, there would be no chipping or cracking with this chunk of rock. I could not budge it off the palette and while I was waiting for the skid steer I marveled at my luck. This must have been a left over from a special order for some kind of interesting project in years past and I just had the good fortune to discover it while wandering around with an incomplete idea in mind.

We just dropped it of the back of the truck onto the lawn. This may sound unprofessional but it worked, with no damage to lawn or stone. Then we took the slab on a handcart back into the garden. This is where the hard part began. We had to dismantle the fountain and take out all the annuals in front of it to insert this heavy piece of blue stone in between two old clumps of alliums in a fully planted garden. Brandishing a level and old chips of blue stone to level the fountain accurately we got it done, watching where we put our feet and with no damage to the alliums, reminding me of that childhood game operation.