What a beautiful garden and birdbath! My experience is to use only materials that are good for outside, I used ceramic indoor tiles on one I did and the tiles froze and are chipping/flaking off!!! It has broken my heart to put all that effort in to have it fall apart! Gosh, what a nice pic to look at on a wintery day!!!

I've never done a birdbath, but I'm drooling over your flower garden. How Lovely! I dream of a space like that someday. I have the space, just have never done anything with it. Another "one of these days"...

I've heard that to deal with things like the flowers on top, is to fill them in with mortar and make it more smooth. I've used stained glass on a birdbath with strong adhesive and have had no problems. As for how long to wait, I'd give it a few weeks. Guess it depends how damp it's been there.

Thanks! The garden was done mostly through winter-sowing (there's a forum here), just tossed everything in with no regard to much of anything other than height. It worked.

Sirius- define "strong adhesive." Would thinset work for this application? Where are you located? I'm in Z5 in New Hampshire, so the weather can get pretty extreme- by that I mean down to -20 on the worst day, or 90+ and humid in summer, and the usual spring downpours &/or flooding. But if I did this, I'd obviously take it inside for winter.

Thinset should be the right adhesive for this application.

Concrete is semi-porous and will always soak up some moisture. Thinset is the same way so it will flex a bit with the concrete - should work out fine.

I'd bring it in, let it come to room temp for a few days, and then glue away!

I'm sure glad you asked this, because I've been thinking about doing a birdbath too. I'll follow along right behind you!

I'd let it dry out for a few days too.
Thinset is what I used.
I see the flowers as an asset, but it will take small pieces and good placement to keep them looking like flowers!
May the force be with you!!

I'm w/SIRIUS on using thinset for filling in the area to smooth it out, and definitely w/use thinset for adhesive AND grout. I LOVE your garden. Don't know anything about winter sowing. Do you just sprinkle the seeds and then rake the dirt slightly over the seeds? And, it's so warm here now, I'm afraid they'd come up. When do you plant the seeds? When there's no chances of them awaking until spring? No time to go to anymore forums. I should get my buttons up from here NOW and get to work.

Slow-
The basics are:

Get some containers (I like Milk jugs), slice them in half horizontally, leaving a small portion under the handle intact (a hinge), and cut a few small holes in the bottom edge for drainage.

Fill with potting soil- about 3-4" is good.

Sow your seeds into the jug.

Close the jug- secure with duct tape. Toss the cap in the garbage; you don't need it.

Toss the jug outside IN THE WINTER. The seeds will germinate when they are ready, and you plant them out in the spring in little hunks. Like when they have a true set of leaves.

You do this starting now (til whenever you wanna be done. I do it Dec/Jan/Feb/Mar...tender annuals like Zinnias I'll put out starting in April).

When the weather starts to get warm, you simply open up the container a little at a time to give them a little more air (I suppose you could liken this to hardening off, but it's moreso to keep your seedlings from frying when the weather gets warm).

That's pretty much it. You do have to keep tabs on moisture levels, but this whole method keeps your seeds from being eaten by critters, washed away in rain, moved by Ma Nature, etc. Gives them a little protected environment to grow in.

Best of all: No hardening off, no indoor light setup...they are born in the cold, so they are already hardened off. Very cool way to grow stuff. You can see my shelving unit that I have outside for the jugs- upper right of the pic.

Yep, they go right out in the snow all winter.

Never had luck with winter sowing, but I may try again. I'd like to for zinnias and stuff like that.

I did a bird bath WAY back. I couldn't possibly have used the "right" stuff, but I don't remember exactly what I did. Probably stuff from Michaels. Never had a problem.I do usually take it in for the winter ( michigan -freeze,thaw,freeze,thaw repeat, repeat,repeat...)

Maria

Well, thanks a million MM - that is super easy. Might give it a try. The Head Gardner around here has been AWOL for the last couple years. Might need to hunt her up and try this one.

Definitely agree with smoothing out detailed places with thinset to make less curves. I didn't on my birdbath and it was really a pain. I put a little additive in my thinset so it didn't set up quite as fast and would have a little give under the glass. Wrapped mine up and stored it for the winter (Z6) as soon as it was finished. Have a birdbath I bought a long time ago (i.e., b4 mosaics) that's meant to stay outside all year.

Sorry, I can't get past your garden. How beautiful!

MM - don't you have to water them ever so often while they are in the jugs?? How do you handle that during the winter? or does it act like a terrarium and create condensation from the water you use at planting?

Sorry so many questions.....never had any idea it would be this easy!

Pat

MM, that is a beautifully shaped birdbath in a beautiful garden. I'm sure once it's mosaiced it's going to compete with those flowers.

I live in Florida so can't advise on the wintering of a birdbath, but I have made a few. I used E6000 and GE II as adhesives; I did not know about using thinset when I made them. The first one I made is about 3+ years old and I've had no problems.

Forgot to comment on the beautiful garden! Bookmarked the page to try. Like curb, also had a question whether you watered the potting soil when you first put it in or at all until you open the jugs up? Definitely want to try this; any flowers easier or harder to do this with than others? I'm sure your BB will be as beautiful as your garden.

Well, I brought the BB into the new room today. Took your advice, and filled the whole thing with thinset so it's smooth to work on now.
d3- thanks for mentioning that about it competing with the flowers! I hadn't thought of that. I would move it except that it "marks" our septic tank cover. (And serves to "hide" the fact that the ground has a serious dip right there, so with the vertical of the BB, you don't notice the dip...and expanding the garden was perfect for also hiding the dead grass that resulted from the septic being there!!! LOL!)

Anyway, enough about my tips for hiding septic tanks...
I'll get some progress pix up in a bit.

oh, and DIY- generally speaking, I've had luck with just about 100% of the stuff I plant WS-ing...and I've had just about everything out there at any given point- much to the dismay of the DH, who doesn't particularly like looking at my masses of containers 1/2 the summer...

I'll start a new thread for the BB since I've totally hijacked this one with my WS discussion. Sorry 'bout that!