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Allotment Articles1.
Allotment Articles 2.
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Self Contained
Fountains
If you have young children you may come to the conclusion that you can't have a water feature in your garden. This is not true as it is possible to buy a self-contained fountain. This can be a large stone ornament with a fountain attached and its own water reservoir. These are entirely safe as the water reservoir in the fountain may be less than a bucketful so there is no risk of drowning. This type of fountain costs from about £200 upwards depending on the nature and the size of the fountain, with some featuring children, some mermaids, or animals and others artistic shapes made from rock, slate, metal, or even glass. The problem with these fountains is often that on a windy day the water will be blown out of the fountain, so that the ornament needs constant topping up, or else the pump will burn out.
Another type of self-contained fountain is wall mounted. This is again an ornament with its own water supply, but it is secured firmly to a wall where it is out of the wind and so should loose less water. Some of these ornaments are made out of plastic and are a little more modest in their price. Nowadays it is also possible to buy small stone fountains that are small enough to go in the house on a sideboard, or table and often featuring tiny waterfalls with clouds of mist.
Millstones are used as another popular, outdoor, self-contained water feature. With these, the millstone is place over a waterproof container with a pump in, and the fountain, (often a miniature geyser) spouts up through the middle.
One way of making an inexpensive water feature yourself, is to have a small hole lined with a pond liner and filled with cobbles. The pump is buried in the middle of the cobbles and a few buckets of water added.
With this set up, the fountain sprays onto the cobbles giving a child proof water feature. In many water features the pump is often an integral part and if it malfunctions obtaining a replacement can sometimes be a problem especially with foreign made fountains. So do check before buying a fountain that replacement pumps are available.
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