Bird baths help to make your garden or yard a more appealing stop for beautiful birds and butterflies.
While having a bird bath in your yard is beneficial to the wild animals in your area, they can be really expensive to purchase outright. Luckily, there’s an easy and inexpensive way to make your own rustic birdbath that the birds will love.
The Benefits of a Bird Bath
Bird baths are a beautiful addition to any backyard garden, but did you know they’re beneficial to the natural world, too?
All living creatures need a source of clean water, and birds are no exception. Birds not only use bird baths for drinking, but for bathing and preening their feathers as well.
Insects like butterflies and bees have been known to use bird baths as well. These delightful insects are pollinators, and should be encouraged to visit your garden as much as possible to help your flowers and plants grow.
DIY Rustic Hanging Bird Bath
Supplies
You don’t need to spend a lot of money to have a beautiful bird bath. These easy to find supplies are inexpensive and plentiful.
Many of the supplies on this list can be purchased at thrift stores or garage sales very inexpensively. Some of these may even be lying around unused in your garage or shed.
What you’ll need for this project:
- Grapevine Wreath – here’s how to make your own – or you can purchase a range of sizes here.
- String or Rope
- Planter Saucer
- Shepherd’s Hook
- Scissors
The Process
This bird bath is incredibly easy to assemble. After you gather all of your supplies, you can have it hanging in your garden in just a few minutes.
Before you begin, make sure the planter saucer you chose will fit snugly in the wreath and place the shepherd’s hook in the garden.
Step 1
Measure the rope/string to four feet long and cut. Repeat this step three times so you have three ropes, all four feet long.
Step 2
Wrap the first rope around the wreath once and tie tightly with a square knot. Leave a small tail of rope. Wrap the rope around the wreath several more times, pulling it tightly on each wrap. When the rope feels secure, tie it again with a square knot, using the tail left from the first wrap.
Repeat this step with the other two ropes, making sure to space them evenly around the wreath. It’s important to have even spacing with the ropes so the birdbath will hang level.
Step 3
Place the planter saucer inside of the wreath. If yours is a nice, snug fit and will stay in the wreath on its own, you can skip to the next step.
If the saucer feels wobbly inside the wreath, you can easily secure it using hot glue along the under edge where the saucer meets the wreath.
Step 4
Use one hand to hold the saucer and wreath down tightly to a tabletop. Use the other hand to hold all three ropes together and pull upward. Keeping your hand holding the ropes centered above the wreath, wiggle the wreath and the ropes until the ropes are all taught and even.
You don’t want any of the ropes to be uneven at this point or your bird bath won’t hang level.
This is the point to decide how low you’d like for your bird bath to hang. It’s helpful to have the shepherd’s hook already placed in the garden so you can estimate where to put the knot. When you decide on knot placement, tie the three ropes together into a tight knot and cut off the excess rope from the top.
Alternately, for this step, you can tie all three ropes to a metal ring, just be sure to keep the ropes even and taught while you tie.
Hang your new bird bath from the shepherd’s hook and fill it up with fresh water.
It’s ready for some visitors!
Optional step:
If you’d like to make a more fancy birdbath, you can tuck faux ivy, leaves, succulents, or flowers into the edges of the wreath. This adds a touch of whimsy and personality to your birdbath, but it isn’t entirely necessary.
How to take care of your birdbath
It’s important to keep the water in the birdbath clean at all times. Birds, insects, and even frogs will come to drink and bathe in the water, causing it to fill quickly with debris. Stagnant water is a breeding ground for bacteria as well as nasty insects like mosquitoes.
To keep your bird bath fresh, tip it over to empty it out every few days. Rinse it thoroughly with water, and scrub with a cloth if needed. Re-fill the birdbath for all the wildlife to enjoy.
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