How to DIY an easy solar powered water fountain for Fall

DIY Solar Water Fountain

I wanted my own outdoor water fountain, but I didn’t want any DIY water fountain project that involved anything complicated like an electrical cord that I’d have to hide, or plastic tubing to work with.

If you’re looking for an easy DIY like I was, here it is. Let me show you how I took my old large flower pots and turned them into a really cool outdoor fountain.

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DIY Solar Water Fountain Supplies:

• Bottom reservoir (the largest pot)
• Pot to provide lift
• Base (I used the dish that came with my pot)
• Top pot (this is the one the solar water feature will sit in)
• Decorative coverage such as river rocks (or seasonal decor)
• Sunny location

My Pots

If your home is anything like mine, you have some discarded old pots somewhere in the garage–this is the building block for the project. I had clay pots but also used a plastic pot, you could even use something else like a 5 gallon bucket or ceramic pot when you make your own water feature. Whatever water reservoir works in your outdoor space. 

Stacking your pots

The first thing I did was to take a couple of pots and played with how I could get them to fit together. I would put one pot inside of a larger one and then add the bottom tray and then put another pot on top. This is the basic setup for the project.

Playing with the pots this way, I could take a look at how I wanted my final fountain to look. Whether I wanted it to be kind of short and set into the larger bottom pot, or whether I wanted it to be taller. 

My tall solar powered water fountain:

For my project, I decided I wanted to create a kind of tall fountain.

Creating shorter outdoor fountains:

You can choose not to make your DIY solar water fountain so tall. You can have a large bowl base, with your water feature pot sitting more closely inside of it. If you do this, you can add some small rocks between the two pots to make it look nice and clean. 

Here’s a photo showing what that would look like:

Another idea would be to use the bottom pot also as a flower planter, with the water fountain appearing to grow out of the plants in the pot. 

Drain holes

Once I determined which my top pot would be, I needed to work on sealing up the drain holes.

Hopefully your pot will have just one drainage hole, but this plastic pot I was using had a ton of them.  I used a hot glue gun to seal up the holes at the bottom but then I was worried that maybe that wasn’t going to hold over time, so I ended up taking a layer of flex seal and spraying it on the inside as well.

I checked to make sure that my pot was water tight and then I was ready to go.

Building the DIY solar water fountain

I set everything outside and started to build my fountain. first the large pot on the bottom then a smaller pot upside down inside of there on top of that was the dish and on top of that was my final pot (the one that had been sealed).

I filled it up with water, with the water level just a but under the top of the pot so that the solar water pump could float on it and the waterfall cascades right back into the pot itself. 

Making it a Fall Decor Fountain

Then I decided to add some decorative elements to the outside of my pots. I wanted to decorate it to go with my fall decor and so I used some leaves and a few other things just to kind of cover up any rough spots on the pot and to make it look decorative and festive.

It was perfect for my holiday decor.

Since I wanted the fountain to work by itself outside, and I didn’t want to worry about changing batteries I purchased a solar powered fountain I was able to just drop this in place and it started working right away.

The solar panel pump

Here’s the link to the solar pump that I used in this project. I like that it has different nozzles to choose from so that you can select the way the solar fountain pump sprays the water. The big reason I chose this one was the size, the attachments, and fact that it runs on solar energy rather than power cords or any battery backup. It was also the perfect size for my DIY project. 

And it was only around $10!

The only trick with this little fountain is that it has a tendency to move around the pot which means that your water spray might end up overflowing over your pot and getting other things wet and then you’ll have to keep filling up the pot rather than the water simply recirculating.

A great way to account for this is to add little side pieces to the fountain itself (it comes included in the DIY solar water feature kit) in order to hold it at the center of your fountain pot.

Once I did this,  I played around with the nozzles and found the one that sprayed the fountain the way that I liked it best.

My Fall Fountain

And here’s how it looks once I integrated it into my fall decor, which gets full sun. I placed it on a straw bale but normally you’d want to place your own DIY water feature on level ground if you’re going to have it in place throughout the year.

The water flow works great and the water sprays nice and high when there’s direct sunlight on it, but it does become more of a sporadic babbling brook when it’s not sunny. So, keep in mind that you do want to place your own fountain in a good amount of direct sunlight because that’ll make your fountain run best.

I didn’t love the worn look of my pot, so I adjusted the leaves a bit. You an really stylize your pot however fits your decor or the season.

Customizing the DIY Solar Fountain Decor

You can really decorate this for anything. I think I might do a similar project at Christmas time and use some of that spray Christmas snow kind of stuff to cover the pots and then adorn it on the outside as well. You can really let your imagination run wild or you can just create a simple pot and have it in your outdoor garden all year round.

If you had aquatic plants and a larger top pot, you could potentially even create a cool solar plant pot water fountain.

I hope this inspired you to create an outdoor fountain of your own.

The sound of water as you walk up to the house, it’s like my own little Fall outdoor oasis. I don’t love the worn out look of that top pot, so I may spray paint it in the future, depending on how I’m going to decorate it next. I do love that it was an easy project and there’s not a power cord that I have to hide or pvc pipe that had to be run, nothing complicated at all. 

Your DIY solar water fountain

If you do create your own solar water fountain, please send me a picture and I’ll post it here. It would be fun to see the different designs people can come up with for these solar power fountains.

Other Fall Projects you may like: