These 2 photos show an experiment I was playing with today- trying to use the old fountain-over-a-grate idea. I filled a big container with water and tossed a submersible pump in. I covered the container with hardware cloth - running the pump hose up thru a hole in the wire. I grabbed a chunk of concrete and set it on top and propped a concrete leaf on top of that - positioning the pump hose up along the chunk so it touched the leaf where a natural stem hole is. I covered the wire with black stones and turned on the pump. Obviously the set up could use some artistic fine tuning but it works great.... the idea being to dig a hole in the ground, put a container that will hold water into that hole, and make this fountain part be at ground level. I would make some concrete chunks that were more in proportion to the leaf size and I would put a channel inside the chunk thru which to run the pump hose and I would make a connector so the leaf didn't topple off, etc.

Now for the question....

Since seeing the great leaf bench photos recently, I have decided to try making a lowish round table for the patio in the same fashion. Now I am wondering if the above fountain idea would work in the center of the table if I shaped the tabletop more like a big flat donut so the fountain could fit in the center hole. The water reservoir would double as the support column for the table. I would make the whole thing of styrofoam/quickwall/mesh so the weight will not be a problem when you have to remove the top to get to solve any problems in the reservoir later. I can just see the whole thing with the leaves on the top/sides/column and the leaf fountain in the middle. But - am I overlooking anything here? Does anyone want to suggest things I should consider before I start making this???

I plan to make the top about 48 inches in diameter and 4 inches thick. While I am pretty sure styro/quickwall/mesh will make a safe table I will find some rebar and add to the equation just to be sure. What "pattern" to put the rebar in would be of interest to me. I am trying to make a donut shape rigid enough to support weight if someone might sit on it as a low table.


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thanks for any ideas...

Laura

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