| I saw this done on a show once. Very clever! First thing you have to do is decide where you want to put the teapot. In this instance they hung it out on the branch of a tree. You can hang it with fishing line so it will appear to float in mid air. You also have to attach a line to the back of it so that you can elevate the back of the teapot so the water flows out of the spout, just as if you were pouring it. Then you need to decide what is going to catch the water. You can bury a bucket or washtub, with the top of the bucket slightly above grade...or the top of the soil (so the bucket or catch basin doesn't fill with dirt washing in when it rains), make sure that whatever you use as a catch basin will hold a large enough volume of water to fill the tube all the way up...and then some! Cover that with some chicken wire and have some egg rock or decorative stones handy for later. Next, head to your garden center and find an appropriate sized pump according to the size of the bucket and the height to the top of the teapot (the pump has to have enough oomph to get the water up there and moving), and enough tubing to reach from the pump at the bottom of the bucket to the teapot adding about 5 feet or more depending on how far it is from the bucket to the trunk of the tree..you'll see why in the following step. Once the teapot is installed and the bucket buried, place the pump in the bottom of the bucket, plug in the tubing, lead the tubing through the chicken wire and over to the trunk of the tree and either wind it around the trunk a time or two and out on the branch on its way up to the teapot, or better yet, use more fishing line to secure it to the side of the tree out of view, and lead it to the teapot and into the top of the pot. If you have a lid for the teapot you can place the lid on and give a dab of silicone to secure, semi-hiding the tubing coming in. If you want to put a hole in the teapot, out of the line of site, you can silicone seal the tubing through the hole. (If you are going to do this I would be tempted to place the hole slightly higher than the anticipated water level to avoid any potential leakage.) Once the silicone has cured, fill the bucket w/water, plug the pump in, place the eggrock over the chicken wire, hide the tubing on the soil with mulch and prepare to amaze your friends! If someone else has an easier method please share, although this seemed pretty easy to me! Please post pics when you have finished your project ok? Have fun!
Amanda |
