How to Make an Easy Hanging Bird Bath for Your Garden

• Hanging basket
• A shallow dish that fits inside your chosen hanging basket 1-2 inches deep. We used a plant pot saucer for ours.
• A selection of natural materials. We used moss, pine cones, sticks and dried leaves.
• Two bamboo skewers to hold the dish in place

Start by lining the hanging basket with moss. The moss will give your hanging bird bath a nice natural look and help it blend into its surroundings. It’ll also provide the birds with some extra nesting material in Spring.

Fill the body of the hanging basket with a mixture of natural materials. The material will form the solid base for the bath part of the bird bath, so try and fill it evenly and press down, so the dish sits straight.

We used a mixture of pine cones layered with dried stems and leaves to fill our basket. Not only are these materials readily available and free to collect, but they will also act as a fab environment for hibernating insects over the winter.

So this hanging bird bath will also serve as a bug hotel in your garden.

Sit the dish that will hold the water on top of the natural materials and use two bamboo skewers to hold it in place (see photo). The skewers will stop the dish tipping and the water spilling.

Once the dish is secure, trim the skewers to avoid anything injuring itself on them.

We weaved some pliable stems around the basket edge to give the birds something natural to land on and popped a perch across the centre of the dish for the same purpose.

Finally, hang the bird bath in a spot your garden birds like to visit and fill the dish with water.

Within a few days, you’ll hopefully spot your birds making the most of their new hanging bird bath.

For more ideas on how to support wild birds check out our Ten easy ways to attract birds to your garden post and our How to make a cute window bird feeder tutorial.