Concrete Elephant Ear

Decorating the garden?

I am completely addicted to concrete stuff. It is SO much fun to make. Sure, it’s a little messy, but it’s fun. Seeing what you’ve created is even better!

These giant concrete leaves are pretty easy to make and they make great bird baths, and uber-cool garden ornaments.

I’ve done a lot of these this year- all from different sized Elephant Ears (Colocasia). My plan is to make a fountain with them at some point. Like next summer.

The general idea is to take a mound of wet sand, a big leaf, some plastic, fine concrete and go to town. There are a few more steps, but not many. If you have a few hours and big hosta, rhubarb, or elephant ear leaves you can create your own concrete masterpiece. Or a bunch of them!

Here are a few small to medium leaves just after being formed. I had a little bit of leftover concrete. See it in the upper left of the photo? It is being made into a small stepping stone -with mint leaf impressions. I just used a bit of stiff cardboard for the form.

Concrete leaves being molded

For complete instructions here is a link to Garden Gate magazine’s “How-to” page.  Their Making a Birdbath video is very helpful and shows step by step how to make your own leaves.

The trick is to get a fine sandy concrete that does not have stones or aggregate in it.

For you Hypertufa-neers you can make these with Hypertufa, but the leaf detail is so much finer with concrete.

They also call for a lip on their leaves. Some of mine have one, some do not. You can form the concrete so that the leaf sits fairly level without one.

Rooster Enjoying the Bird Bath

Let me know if you try your hand at making your own leaves, I’d love to see pictures!

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Want to start an herb garden?

Did you know our sister site has a free herb gardening online class? Really!

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