trough with sun rose - hypertufa gardener

Checking Up On All The Troughs

I was wandering through the garden and checking over some of the hypertufa troughs I have made these last few years, You may recall some of these from a prior posts, but I am wondering how to make more and where I can fit them. 

But am I really  getting a little excessive in the amount of troughs that I have?

I have so many hypertufa troughs - the hypertufa gardener

I have my hanging hypertufa pot dried out and already put inside. It is one of my few hypertufa pots which will need to come inside, but only because of the plant inside it. This hanging pot, as you recall, is planted with mistletoe cactus (Rhipsalis).  It has done well outside for the past few years hanging up under the deck since it cannot take the full blistering sun.

Hanging Hypertufa Planter - The Hypertufa Gardener

In fact, I had usually hung it over the kitchen sink by the window, but it has gotten too large these last winters. I have put it in the upstairs bedroom window with the other tender succulents I have brought inside.

Overwintering plants - The Hypertufa Gardener

I have the small sticky traps lying on the shelves, but surprise! I have not seen many gnats at all. I have a very few little dead bodies stuff on the paper glue traps lying there, but since I dried them out well as I spoke of in this post, I am not seeing many at all. 

But I have prepared for them. Got my sticky traps, and , by all means, use vaseline and yellow paper if you want to go organic!

Collection of Troughs - The Hypertufa Gardener

The large T Rex Trough seems to have survived the Ants Wars. Maybe the ants took pity on me and packed up and left. Or maybe there were better accommodations found elsewhere, but I don’t care where they went, just so they are GONE!

The trough seems to be doing well. Lost only one plant this year, which was the Rockfoil (Saxifraga) . The rockfoil was just to the right of that rock in this picture. Rockfoil is for a moist area, so that was my fault for not checking it out thoroughly and planting it elsewhere. It says right on the tag “Avoid hot dry sun.” Live and learn.

Planted-up-hypertufagardener

The large bowl is really taking off well, as is the oblong trough. I am really loving the oblong one, and I plan on making a few more for myself with that mold.  It has a really appealing shape.

And I have a great affection for the “wine barrel” one. It looks really old and weathered to me. I think that is another I will duplicate many times.

Now all of these troughs will be outside all winter long in Ohio’s Zone 6. We have very cold winters and freeze for long periods of time, but I am not worried at all about the structure of the hypertufa. I expect it to survive well. But my plants, we shall see. I lost a few last year. Especially the delosperma which was suppposed to be hardy for this area.

I will say it is my fault this past year, but hope to have some more come spring!

Well, I hope you are enjoying the late fall, and are getting ready and positioning your pots for the winter. Don’t put it off too long, because when the snow comes, it is piling up fast.

If you haven’t already, store up some bags of soil, and perlite and peat moss. And get a bag of cement if you have space somewhere. These cool fall days are perfect to make more hypertufa, and they can set outside and cure all winter.

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4 Comments

  1. Anonymous says:

    Good morning Kim,
    Just wanted to say I enjoy your posts as a fellow hypertufa lover. We are close to you in West Chester, so your posts feel more personal as you refer to our common weather.
    I was scheduled to teach a hypertufa class to our daylily club, the Greater Cincinnati Daylily and Hosta Society in Sept. but had to postpone after major back surgery in August. I missed a year in the garden due to my back issues but am making a strong recovery. I miss the hypertufa, which to me is meditative mudpies. Once all the lifting and prep Is done I get lost in playing in the mud. Wish they packaged Portland cement in smaller bags.
    I love the large troughs as well and actually our first team effort (my wife Angie & I) was my Fathers Day gift. An uninterrupted day together to make the “monster”, a rectangular 4′ x 2 1/2′ x 7″ deep trough. It’s been in place 5 yrs now I have it landed Missouri rock rose (a beautiful perineal succulent in the portulaca family with beautiful fuscia butterfly flowers on 6″ wiry stems thacbloom most of the summer) and variegated snapdragons and fill in with other plants.
    Last March I asked to do a 45 minute PowerPoint slide presentation on hypertufa for the Region 2 Winter Symposium. So the audience could see, smell,and feel a “green”, incured project, for that presentation, the day before, I made a round hypertufa planter 20″ across, with rectangular blocks. I was concerned about long term stability of the block joints. I found an old box of rusty, 3″ finish nails and as I placed each block, I inserted 2 nails at different angles into the Bloch to the side and into the one below. Overkill, but I’m sure of the stability of that pot.
    I make and sell concrete and hypertufa garden art (back permitting) and mostly sell to friends and the boutiques at regional and national garden conferences.
    We have an acre and a half and specialize in Daylilies and other perennials with over 1000 varieties of Daylilies. We’re friends with Mike and Sandy Holmes of Riverbend
    Daylily farm in Bellbrook if you’re familiar with them.
    Didn’t intend to write a novel, sorry, but feel like I’ve been imprisoned for the last year not being able to garden or tufa.
    Have a great holiday.

    1. I appreciate your visit and you are pretty close to me. I think you could probably teach me a lot about hypertufa too! So sorry about your back. I know a little about how you feel about not being able to do those things you love. Dislocated my shoulder in 2015 and I don’t feel like I will ever have full strength returned. I have been to the Holmes daylily garden with the garden club. It was breathtaking. As I am sure yours are too! Have a wonderful holiday season and I hope the new year sends you full recovery.

  2. GOOD DAY/
    CAN YOU PLEASE SENT ME N VIDIO HOW TO MAKE THE POTS FROM THE START AND THE RESEP
    THANK YOU
    REGARDS
    RINA

    1. Those videos are on the website here on the page “Videos and Tutorials” or on YouTube under Kim’s Gardens and the recipe is under Procedure page. I did have a downloadable recipe. I will see about putting that back up.

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