Today let’s make it tutorial time. I took a series of photos to show you how to make your own bird bath with concrete using a big rhubarb leaf (this is rabarber, in English rhubarb) as the mold for casting the concrete. A Rhubarb Leaf Bird Bath, no less.
My mom is very creative, as many of you know. I thought I’d post some action shots of my mom being creative in her beloved garden in July. She created a Concrete Bird Bath from a Rhubarb mold, and here’s how she did it.
Step 2: Prep Your Materials
Prepare all of your supplies in advance. Once the wet concrete is applied, you won’t have much time to work with it, and you don’t want it to start drying before you’ve finished shaping your birdbath.
To maintain the convex shape of the two recessed areas on my can lid, I filled them with potting soil. Depending on your form, you might have to take this action. Another option is to create a mound of moist soil or sand and work on top of it. The lid was ideal because I wanted to give my birdbath a vertical edge but didn’t have any sand. My lid did compress under the weight of the concrete, which was okay because it gave my birdbath a flatter bottom. However, I could have prevented this by placing some bricks or another material underneath the lid.
As it happens, my largest rhubarb leaf was insufficient to completely cover the lid, so I used one enormous leaf and two smaller ones instead. I trimmed all the leaves slightly to get rid of the thick spot where the leaf connects to the stalk at the base of the leaf.
Introduction: Rhubarb Leaf Birdbath
My overgrown rhubarb plant is crowding out tomatoes, which I value far more than rhubarb, with leaves big enough to hide a small child. I therefore made a concrete birdbath with the enormous leaves to add texture and interest. In actuality, I recently bought a small solar floating fountain that needed a deeper pool to float in. I had an old rhubarb leaf birdbath that I made years ago, and it was still good. Whatever the case, I now have a larger, deeper, and more attractive birdbath in addition to my previous one, which has moved to a new location in the garden.
You can use any other rhubarb leaves instead of just the ones you have; you’ll just need more of them. Alternatively, you could use something different to give the inside of your birdbath some texture, like burlap, wrinkled fabric,???
- bag of sand/topping mix
- mold form; you can use soil or sand; I used the lid from a garbage can.
- drywall tape
- leaves
- wheelbarrow or large bucket to mix concrete
- rubber gloves
Step 4: Mix Your Concrete
For this birdbath, I used slightly less than half of the bag of concrete mix, and I had some leftover. I believe that having too much is preferable to running out while doing something.
Follow the directions to mix the concrete; it should be thick enough to hold a blob in your hand rather than runny and wet or crumbly and dry.
Apply the substance in small amounts to the undersides of your leaves. Once it has thickened to about an inch, scatter the pieces of drywall tape in a crisscross pattern over the surface (apologies for the lack of pictures; I was unable to finish it all at once!). Then put another layer of concrete over the tape. This will reinforce the concrete.
To ensure that you pick up the texture of the leaves and eliminate any voids on their surface, make sure to sort of slap the concrete down.
This is the time to flatten the top surface so that there is a flat bottom to rest on.
I covered my form loosely with a piece of damp burlap because it was exposed to the sun all day.
FAQ
What should you do with rhubarb leaves?
How do you make insect spray from rhubarb leaves?