Though It’s Not For The Birds You’ll Definitely Enjoy Making This Succulent Project
I've always thought it would be fun to fill a bird bath with succulents and have seen some beautiful photos of them. This birdbath hadn't been used for several years so I decided to fill it up with some cold-hardy succulents. I am thrilled with how it turned out!
Supplies you'll need
This was a really fun project and I'm happy with how it turned out. The only things that made it difficult were drilling a hole in the bird bath and being outside for a while in the hot afternoon sun (probably not the best time to plant).
Here's what you'll need for this project:
- An empty bird bath
- Succulent soil
- Sempervivums and Sedums
- Drill
- Diamond tip drill bit
Here's a step by step of what I did to fill up this beauty!
Drill a hole for drainage
First I drilled a hole in the bottom of the bird bath for drainage. I used a diamond tip drill bit. If you haven't done this before, here is a video tutorial to show you how.
Start by filling the bird bath with a little bit of water to keep the surface and drill bit wet. Start at an angle and straighten out the drill bit as you get deeper.
This was by far the hardest part of planting this bird bath. Having at least one drainage hole is crucial.
Add more drainage holes if needed
I only did one hole because the bird bath is so shallow and will dry out relatively fast. The one hole will prevent water from pooling for too long.
If you have a deeper or larger bird bath, I highly recommend adding more drainage holes. Obviously, these were designed to hold water not let it flow out. But your succulents won't be happy sitting in a puddle of water.
Mound the soil
After the drainage hole was in I added the soil. I recommend mounding the soil in the middle to create some height.
Since I'm using mostly cold hardy Sempervivums and Sedums (which don't get very tall) I didn't want the design to be flat. Mounding the soil allowed me to create a nice hill of succulents.
Place the focal point succulent
I purchased a larger Sempervivum to be the focal point. I bought it locally so I was able to pick out a large specimen surrounded by lots of chicks.
You could also use a large, interesting rock as a focal point as well. Just be sure to choose a plant or rock that has some height so it stands out above the other succulents you'll place next.
Add filler succulents
After that I added in some cold hardy Sedums around the edges. The varieties used here have very small leaves and provide a nice contrast to the larger Sempervivum. They should also grow outward and potentially "spill" over the edge of the bird bath.
Add in the other succulents
I filled in most of the rest with more Sempervivums. While I didn't strictly follow the "thriller, filler, spiller" method here, it does loosely fit those ideas. As I added in the plants I tried to place them in "ribbons" or continuous lines to keep it feeling cohesive while still having a lot of variety.
Add a top dressing
Once I had all of my plants in, I covered the exposed soil with a top dressing to finish it off. In this case, the top dressing was a few handfuls of golden colored pebbles. I always like adding a top dressing, but this definitely contributed to the composition and helped the design look complete.
Consider adding plants around the base
You may not always have this option, but I decided to add plants around the base of the bird bath, hoping they would eventually fill out a bit more and create a second lush grouping of plants below. Any water that drains out of the bird bath would help the plants below as well.
A closer look at the finished product
I'm loving how this turned out, plus it makes a great early birthday gift for my mom! Hopefully this inspires you to add some extra fun to your garden decor. Have you filled a bird bath with succulents? If so I'd love to see it!
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This article originally appeared on Succulents and Sunshine.