Index:
Page 1 -
History of Hypertufa
Page 2 -
Hypertufa Recipes
Page 3 -
Building a Hypertufa trough and pot
Page 4 -
Variations, Waterproofing & Helpful Tips
The History of
Hypertufa
Sophisticated gardeners have discovered a different way of potting up plants:
gardening
in hypertufa troughs.
Hypertufa container gardening originated in the Orient and was very
popular
in
England
during the 1920's and 1930's. The English used old stone watering troughs as
containers
for their alpine (mountain) plants.
These vessels were carved out
of stone,
and used as feeding
and watering containers for livestock. When farmers replaced these containers
with
modern
ones, gardeners, seeing the porous rock tubs as ideal planting media, began to
collect and covet these large pieces. This concept quickly spread to the United
States but, as the availability of natural troughs declined, gardeners looked
for substitutes.
Gardeners turned to a soft,
lightweight, porous rock, called tufa.
A natural limestone, tufa comes from the British Columbia and California
coastlines. It is formed naturally when water action over thousands of years
dissolves certain minerals in composite
rocks
to create a rough textured, porous rock. This material is an ideal natural
solution to the historic trough material because it breathes and holds a
suitable amount of moisture is easy to carve and is lightweight. Tufa is also
capable of withstanding northern climates. It is, however, very expensive and
often hard to get. When the supply of tufa rock became scarce, gardeners
looked for other materials to use. Today gardeners make or buy stone-like
troughs and containers made of light-weight ingredients called Hypertufa.
Hypertufa
is a synthetic rocklike version of tufa. It is usually made of peat moss,
perlite and Portland cement. This combination makes the Hypertufa troughs and
containers light-weight and
porous. Hypertufa containers are made in all shapes and sizes, from small, shallow
bowl-shaped containers to large, deep, square containers, not unlike the
watering troughs of olde England. These troughs look old, attract lichens and
mosses, and resemble stone. This type of container garden offers many
advantages. They're easy to care for and will tolerate considerable neglect.
They look wonderful inside as well as out. They may be left outside year round.
The thick walls of these Hypertufa planters act as an insulator against the harsh
elements, thus nurturing the plants.
These
containers can be made in a few hours, require inexpensive materials found in
hardware stores and weigh a fraction of the stone originals. The project
requires little artistic talent and no special masonry skills. For those of you
who don't think you have what it takes, these troughs can also be purchased at
local garden centers. Hypertufa troughs are perfect for pots, planters,
decorative stepping stones, bird baths, water courses, and lawn ornaments.
The first Hypertufa troughs imitated the look of
the original English stone sinks and were fashioned by applying a mixture of
Portland cement, peat moss, and vermiculite or perlite over chicken-wire
reinforcement. Modern Hypertufa trough makers have eliminated the cumbersome chicken
wire, adding strands of a concrete reinforcement called Fibermesh to the recipe
to provide the same sort of strength.
The information contained here is now available in an
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(Additional recipes and tips are included in the eBook)
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