The-Artistic-Garden's Blog

There’s Lots Of Helpful Creative Tips & How-To’s
For DIY Garden Art Crafters

If you’re familiar with my hugely popular website that has lots of DIY unique garden art projects The-Artistic-Garden.com, then you KNOW you’ll be just as pleased with all the great information and how-tos found on this new site.

So come on in, and take some time to look around. If you’ve got information to share after reading a specific post, then please leave a comment or helpful suggestion. Everybody can benefit from each others trials, tribulations and great tips in making handmade garden art items. Me included.

How to Increase Moisture in Container Garden Soil

I thought I’d talk about a great product you may not have heard of before – water crystals, aka water gel – that can make your outdoor container gardening watering requirements a bit easier. These little white granules are a type of absorbent polymer that can absorb up to 400 or 500 times their weight with water (there are different brands on the market – there may be variances in their absorption rates). When hydrated, the water crystals swell up, holding the water, and will look like little pieces of ice. Plus, water crystals are non-toxic and safe to touch with your hands. They are eco-friendly too, decomposing harmlessly over time. They can be purchased at big-box stores, many garden centers and online.

If you have a number of planted container gardens and hanging baskets, you’ve probably run into the issue of having to do more frequent waterings in the hotter months. Many of us live in very hot climates, or our summers get awfully hot, and I find that during the height of summer I may have to water my container plants two, if not three times a day! That can pose a problem if no one is at home during daytime hours. A drooping, stressed-out plant is not a good thing, and sometimes a plant can’t even handle this situation once, let alone many times. So, watering of potted plants can become quite an issue for the home gardener.

How to Mix Water Crystals Into Soil Before Potting the Plant

These crystals can absorb a lot of water, thus will get very large. This is one issue to keep in mind, as the expanding crystals can literally push the soil out of the pot, so be very careful with how many you add to the container’s soil. I would suggest you use less than the package’s label says to. It’s up to you, but many of us using them do find that if we use the amount stated on the label, that the moistened crystals do indeed push the soil over the top of the container. Perhaps you might want to expert by adding soil to a small pot, mix in some crystals, water and see what happens. This might help you get a better idea of how many to add in.

Also, thoroughly mix and incorporate the water crystals into the soil – don’t get too many in one spot. As they swell they can push a plant right out of it’s pot!

Here’s a highly suggested method/trick to help you figure out the right amount of water crystals to use: water the crystals FIRST before you mix them into the soil. The crystals will adsorb the water like a sponge and immediately turn into their gel-like substance. I assure you that you’ll be very surprised at how much larger they become. Then, keep adding water until it is obvious that they can’t possibly absorb anymore water.

Then, mix them into the soil. Then go ahead and fill the container. You can either wet the soil again before putting the plant in, or just skip this second watering and plant the container.

However, here is a general guide of how much to use in relation to a pot’s size – again remember to experiment first to determine how much the crystals you’ve purchased will expand when moistened:

 6″ pot = 1 tbsp. dry granules
 8″ pot = 3 tbsp. dry granules
10″ pot = 4 tbsp. dry granules

How to Use Water Absorbing Crystals in Already Potted Plants

Here’s a few tips on how to incorporate these crystals into container soil that has plants growing in it. This is reverse of the above instructions, but I recommend that you add in the granules DRY.

First, thoroughly moisten the soil. Then, using the handle of a wooden spoon or pencil, poke holes down into the soil all around the plant. A good rule of thumb to follow is to poke one hole for every inch around the diameter of your container. Make the hole about 2/3′s of the way down the depth of the soil.

Using about 5-10 or so DRY water crystals per hole, carefully drop them down into each hole. Then water well.

Note: I will mention that if I were wanting to ADD these crystals into an existing planting, I’d go to the trouble of unpotting the plant(s) and going through the steps as listed above for adding moistened crystals to loose soil. Then I’d repot the plant. It really isn’t that much of a hassle, and you’ll have the assurance that the crystals are distributed better throughout the potting soil.

Watering Tip for Container Gardens and Hanging Plants Using Water Crystals

A last tip I’ll pass along is to how to get the greatest water absorption of the crystals once they’re mixed into the soil in your containerized plants.

Try this: water the container until water just starts to come out the bottom drainage hole, then move on to the next container until water is just beginning to drain from that one, and so on. Then, go back to the first one, water until the water starts draining out of the bottom, and so on.

You’ll likely be surprised at just how much more water the crystals in each container can hold. It seems that the crystals don’t necessarily suck up all they can absorb instantly.

I hope this information on using a simple product like these water absorbing crystals helps make your container gardening efforts more successful and less tedious to tend to.

How Much Can I Charge for My Homemade Hypertufa Garden Art Items?

I get asked this question on a pretty regular basis. and just the other day I received another private email asking me about this, so I thought I’d put the question and my reply here for everyone to learn from.

I received a really nice email from Steve, an enthusiastic hypertufa newbie:

Hi Claudia: My wife and I just this evening began a hypertufa project that we saw in a local newspaper a few months ago. It was fun working together to make a small trough! I started to browse the Internet looking for more hypertufa info, and found your website. What a goldmine of information!!!

I went ahead and purchased your Hypertufa How-To Manual eBook, and can’t wait to start reading it.

We are pretty enthused about the hollow spheres we saw on your site. Every May, our city has a city-wide garage sale. For a few years, we have been selling assorted glass products, and have many customers who return to us each year. We think we’d like to add some hypertufa items, like the hollow spheres, to what we sell. How much do you think we can sell them for?

We look forward to your reply, and learning the many tips and ideas from your eBook to make this fun and successful (wait – that is redundant!). Thanks for setting up your website, and for offering the benefit of your experience through the book!!! Steve.

My reply:

Hello Steve:
Wow … what a nice way to start my day … thank you so much for taking the time to email me with your kind compliments. I do try awfully hard to provide thorough, clearly explained information on my websites and in the eBook. I needed a pat on my back this morning.

Your idea to sell ‘tufa spheres most probably will be a big hit, as long as you have lots of gardeners who visit the garage sale (of course). Just remember that you need to give any hypertufa or concrete object at least 30-days cure time before you can sell it in good conscience … not only do you want it to be good and “dry” (cured) but the issue of it being safe to plant flowers or other plants in is also an issue. You will find more info on this in the eBook. Also, if you live in a cold climate, the cure times might take longer, depending upon the time of year you make the items.

As I just told another crafter the other day about making some extra income via selling hypertufa garden art items you’ll need to keep in mind you need a dedicated work area (I would NOT advise you setting up a large scale project like this in your kitchen or basement, for instance) AND you need a spot to let the items cure for at least 30 days. Plus, being able to hose them off versus having to dip them in water baths is also a consideration if you start to get into larger items. In your case, I don’t know how large you want to make your spheres!

Even simple troughs/planters (rectangular or even round) would probably sell well for you, too. I have a friend who paid $35 for a very rough, unspectacular looking round hypertufa planter! (I was surprised she forked over that much $$ for it, to be honest, as she is one of the most frugal people I know! lol) It wasn’t very large and I know the cost of materials and time it took for the crafter to make it weren’t that much. (Note: I am sure you realize that larger spheres are going to be somewhat labor intensive.)

As far as price points, I guess it’s the old adage of “what will the market bear”? Obviously size, simplicity or ornateness of an object and consumer demand for that particular item all comes into play. I’d say shop around at garden centers; see what kind of pots and containers they sell and the prices for those, then try and calculate your material costs, time involved and mark-up desired and see if it is a reasonable price. Then try and sell it! If people grab up your pieces left and right … perhaps a slight price increase will pose no problem for you.

And as it always is with selling something, you’ve got to educate the person who might not otherwise have a clue about the advantages of having a hypertufa planter. If you’re at a street fair or farmers market setting, you’ll be able to give sales pitches to people as they are walking by. Grab their attention! Be friendly and work the crowd.

I wish you and your wife lots of fun and the best of luck in pursuing this project!

How to Calculate Amount of Portland Cement and
Other Ingredients for Garden Art Projects

I received an email the other day from Tess asking me:

Hi! We are going to try to make a 4 ft diameter millstone garden fountain out of hypertufa. I believe your recipe for the Hypertufa Recipe With Fiber Mesh for Added Strength is the way to go. Any idea how much of the ingredients we will need to get to accomplish this? Will this hold up with constant water and hard winters?

Thanks in advance, Tess

My reply:

Hi Tess:
About the quantity needed – here’s a nifty free concrete calculator on another website that you can use: concrete calculator.

In the “Round Footing” section, I filled in 4-feet 0-inches X 6-inches high and I got 9.4 80-lb bags required. So you fill in the calculator and see what result you get and then buy at least that much Portland cement. Then buy the rest of the ingredient(s) you want to use in proportion to the cement. **Better to have more on hand than needed – you can always return a bag of cement if it is unopened.

However, why are you making it in hypertufa, rather than a “pure” concrete recipe??? The peat moss will decompose over time, especially being that it will be in direct contact with water 24/7. Do you want small pits and crevices in your millstone, or do you want it to be more authentic looking like smooth stone? Don’t use a hypertufa recipe if you want a smoother stone.

Yes – your finished project, whether ‘tufa or ‘crete, *should* hold up to freezes and thaws for many many years, that is IF you concocted the recipe correctly and IF you allowed it to cure properly. I suggest you try your hand at a smaller project with the recipe you decide to use first … give it a month to cure and at least see if it holds together properly, etc. Then tackle the big millstone project. Better safe than sorry and wasting LOTS of product.

Best of luck with this project!