How to Make Garden Bells

The garden can be a sanctuary from which you retreat from the rigors of the day. You can use sound to "color" your garden, adding to the entire experience. Garden bells can produce powerful sounds that can evoke a variety of emotions. Here's how to make them.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Make a garden bell out of a terra cotta pot. Hang it upside down. Tie a large knot on one end of the string attached to a piece of broken pot or a stone. Suspend this knocker from the hole of the terra cotta pot.

2. Hang the pot from a tree or stand.

3. Experiment with different sized pots and various knockers to get different tones.

4. Create a bell from a metal pot. Hang it in the same manner as the terra-cotta bell.

5. Cut 4 pieces of steel into long angular triangles with a cutting torch (acetylene) or have someone cut them for you. These chimes make lovely garden bells.

6. Weld the top few inches of the triangles together and let spaces remain along the rest of the triangles' length.

7. Suspend a piece of wood from a string so that it will bang against the inside of the triangle when the wind blows it.

8. Try out different gauges of steel to create lower and higher tones for your bells.

9. Add a garden bell to a fountain or a plaque for your garden. Personalized plaques can be found in various stores or online.

Resources

• Yankee Harvest has buoy bells for your garden.
• Outdoor Décor has garden bells and personalized plaques.