How About Making A Hypertufa Crevice Garden?

Easy to take care of? Not much watering needed? Sounds like an ideal garden for a busy lifestyle right? So that is why I have decided to make one of my latest hypertufa pots into a small crevice garden. I was contemplating all the succulent planter ideas I could come up with and I realized that I have seen some really pretty crevice gardens, so why not create a small one, in miniature, inside a hypertufa pot.  Sounds like one of my best succulent planter ideas yet, right?

But where do I get the rocks?

Well, I have a lot of rocks already in the garden, either for creating stepping stones or for pathways and borders. How about I break these up into long pieces to create the crevices in my new hypertufa pot? Since I have recently made a large round shallow pot, I will show you how I did that. It may help someone who is new to hypertufa. I think using it as a crevice garden planters would be perfect.

Curing and leaching by immersion have already been done and I will show you how I did that in the video. It has been more than a week, so it is ready to plant up. I have many cuttings from my existing succulent gardens, so no problem getting some new succulents to plant it thickly. Since we have just started the fall season, there should be a lot of time left for these to get well-rooted before they will want to go dormant for the winter season. Then springtime will have them bursting at the seams…or crevices in this case.

Making a Hypertufa Bowl for a Crevice Garden

Breaking up some of my flat rocks will (maybe) work using a sledge hammer of some kind. I can put the rock between two bricks or other rocks and hit the area between the two with a chisel-like tool.  I want long jagged or flat pieces. Watch the video to see what happens.

Why Make A Crevice Garden?

I have never traveled to the Mountains where alpine plants grow, but I can only imagine how beautiful it would be to see all those plants in their natural habitat. The closest I have come is to create my own Rock Garden which I have done previously and my boulder rock gardens here at the house.

But if I want a rock garden in miniature, creating one in a hypertufa trough is the next best thing. And I think the Crevice Garden in a hypertufa container would be perfect, just a small scale version of the real thing.

A miniature rock garden or crevice garden will be easier to take care of than a huge garden which could be overwhelming. I have not made a crevice garden before, so this should be a new experience in a new type of garden for me. Mine will have succulents and some alpines that are hardy. I won’t plant anything this late in the year that isn’t hardy. No point in that!

The crevice garden is created by pushing flat rocks vertically or slightly slanted into the soil in the planter then filling those pockets created between the slabs with a good soil mixture, rich enough to maintain the plants but deep enough to give them good drainage. Some alpine plants are really good for this just as succulents such as sempervivum. Haven’t you all pulled apart a Mother Hen and seen a root as long as a carrot? She reaches for nutrients as deeply as necessary, but keeps herself and her chicks high and dry.

Making the Dish for My Crevice Garden

This first part of the two-part series is just the making of the hypertufa dish. After filming so much, I decided I had to split it into two parts since the video would be very, very long. So I will have Part Two ready (hopefully) for Friday. Be sure to check back then for the rest of the story.

Part Two is now ready!