I must have missed this!I love it! I love the look of the cherub perched on the ball. I have some of those wire baskets somewhere,and I've been seeing a lot of cherubs lately at yard sales and thrift stores, I should have snagged one to make this. I have a plastic birdbath that's wobbly,and DH keeps saying he's going to fill the bottom with cement and use it as a form to make a base,then cut the plastic off. This would be the perfect project:) And Pattico I love yours,too! Hmmmmmm, I'm running out of choices for blooming plants! lol

never toss out metal poles or flat panels...you can make a lot of things with them...arbors, trellis. But check to see if you can get a replacement top...cheaper than the whole thing. Maybe you can upgrade to material. Check with a local tent maker or canvas dealer...if it goes back up and is straight enough to reuse it will be really worth it. I lost 2-3 umbrellas to this CA wind. It just makes you sick in the pit of your belly.

yeah, it's in my favorites, too. I e-mailed the same person who is responsible for the study of the tires used in the gardens. To his knowledge, there hadn't been any danger and if there was a possibility of snakes wanting to make a home, there would be a few things to counteract it. If you choose to pile the tires for planting, then the inside could be lined to discourage any snakes trying to get inside. Check any and all tires before even beginning to use them. See, I wouldn't have had that concern because we only have little garden snakes around here. In eastern Washington, there are rattlesnakes but I'm on the west side of the state. It isn't the dry flat lands of the desert type of land. Anyway, check tires. Then choose how you plan to use them. The way I want to do is to use only the actual part of the rubber that touches the road. Everything else is cut away. It leaves strips of rubber to work with. The same idea used to make sandles. When the rubber is in these strips and laid out, they're stapled to pieces of wood at intervals, to make a continuous runner, to be set in place. The length, width and height are all a personal choice. Basically, instead of 2x4's running the length of the planting bed, it's flat rubber. One tire width or more high, to make the border around the planting area. That's how I have intentions of using them. I can't imaging a snake wanting to cozy up to that. I think if I had any snakes around like you do, I'd be gardening inside a warm sunny vault of some kind. No way would I be outside any where near that kind of critter. Hope you still try the tire frame beds.

Great use for Re-Cycled 25 gal. Molasses Tubs. Each tub has a 7 gal, water reservoir built into the bottom with 4 Polyester wicks bringing water up into the soil media planting area by capillary action. Even have them hooked up together with 1/2" dripline hooked into a 5 gal. bucket with a horizontal float valve so the reservoirs stay full 24/7