Incredible Hypertufa House & Garden Wall
If You’ve Wondered How Durable Hypertufa Really Is …
Take A Look At These Photos
While doing some research the other day that had nothing to do with hypertufa, I came across a search result that caught my attention, clicked on it and started to scan everything that was posted there.
The photos and comments centered around a conference that took place in Holland. About a third of the way down the long thread – 
Wowee! What I saw made me immediately think that I just had to share it with the rest of you. I’ll bet none of you have ever seen anything like this before – a house built from hypertufa! The most incredible thing to me is that evidently the owner built everything you see in these two photos from hypertufa.
Come on! Talk about a massive project to tackle! This gentleman was obviously dedicated to transforming his property into one incredible natural looking Alpine setting.
Here’s a snippet from the actual thread: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 – 8:45 pm / Poster: Paul Cumbleton “… the remarkable garden of Marijn van den Brink. He built this – and his house – himself over 4 years. Almost all the “stone” you see is actually hand-made hypertufa – including the large slabs over 2m tall!!”
This forum thread also has some wonderful photos of massive arrays of Dutch tulips, daffodils and other flowers, and also many photos of Alpine gardening ideas that I am sure a lot of you could adapt to use in your gardens, if for nothing else than to make an attractive rock garden in a spot in your yard that might need a little something interesting added for visual appeal.
So … if you question the durability of building something simple like a trough or making a garden stepping stone from a hypertufa recipe, perhaps these photos will prove to you that at least one person in the world believes 100% that hypertufa can stand the test of time! 
As long as you’ve gotten the recipe ratios correct and you’ve properly cured the hypertufa then ‘tufa can last almost indefinitely. I must emphasize this, as a bad batch of hypertufa can start out looking like it’ll be OK, and then it can start to fall apart.
To view the entire thread, please go to: Dutch International Conference of Alpine Plants 2005
I hope you find the information on the hypertufa house and other creative ways to do rock gardening as interesting as I did. Enjoy!
June 17th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Wow, this guy is amazing! I Googled him and found his website, which has great photos and little video which shows great views of his garden and house (in Dutch though)! Here’s the website: http://www.v-d-brink.nl/
June 18th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Nancy:
Hey – thanks for digging that link up. Now it gives all of us a much better idea of the installation. It’s all in his (somewhat small) backyard!! He must be one dedicated ‘tufa kind of guy.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I’ve just had an aha! moment … I have been contemplating putting in 2 low (12″-15″) brick retaining walls in a hosta & fern covered part of my garden. It’s not a wall that will be supporting structures or anything that would require an engineer to figure out, but I have not been looking forward to digging and pouring a foundation and laying brick. I’ve made some tufa troughs that are going strong after 2-3 years so now I’m thinking why not sink some 2′-3′ tufa slabs in the ground and go for an irregular, natural-looking wall instead? This could be fun! Thanks for the link!
June 18th, 2009 at 10:35 am
[...] couple of days ago I posted about one awe inspiring use of hypertufa for a garden wall and house and alert blog reader Nancy did some nosing around on the internet (thanks, Nancy!) and found a [...]
January 12th, 2010 at 3:12 am
I have constructed a new photo site.
The new address is: http://photos.v-d-brink.eu
Regards, Marijn
January 19th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Hi Marjin:
So nice to hear from you – thank you for letting me and my visitors know about your new photo gallery.
I especially want to direct all the hypertufa and concrete garden art crafers, and the rock garden enthusiasts to make sure to look at the photo section with over 1,000 (WOW!) photos: http://photos.v-d-brink.eu/Rock-Garden
Thanks for the update.