The-Artistic-Garden's Blog

A Very Frustrated Hypertufa Trough Maker
Seeks Helpful Advice & Answers To Her Problem

I received this email plea for assistance from “Laughing”:

Please help me Claudia! I have tried the hypertufa beginner recipe several times and my ‘tufa troughs and containers break apart while taking them out of the molds I am using, which are simple large plastic containers – nothing fancy or anything. Just rectangular containers.

Only 2 of my hypertufa troughs out of about 20 have survived! Any thoughts?

Help please. Laughing

My reply:
Hi Laughing:
Oh dear … sorry to hear about this and I know you really aren’t laughing! (But if you are – good for you! Life has too many other things to get stressed over … hypertufa isn’t one of them! )

Unfortunately, I can’t nail down where the problem lies, as I haven’t a clue to everything you are doing, from A to Z. But my BIGGEST guess, based on years of experience in helping other beginners with the same problem is this:

??Are your ratios of dry ingredients to water correct??
This is normally the #1 culprit that causes disasters.

I will also ask are you unmolding them too soon? Or perhaps you’re not providing enough moisture during the cure process? You should make it a point to peek inside the plastic bag you’ve wrapped your troughs in to see if condensation is collected on the inside of the bag every now and then.

Perhaps my reply doesn’t sound too helpful, but really … either a too dry or too wet mixture is what normally causes the problems. It *sounds* like maybe too dry a mixture is why the portland can’t set-up nice and strong, since you say they fall apart. Even though when you apply the mixture it seems OK, after the item(s) start to cure, that’s when the issue of not enough water in the hypertufa recipe becomes apparent.

If your mixture was too wet, most times it would start slumping off the sides of your form and you’d know almost instantly you had goofed and used too much water in the recipe.

My only other stab-in-the-dark guess is are you really using the right ingredients as listed in the beginner’s recipe?

Good luck and I hope this sets you on the right path.

Hey “The-Artistic-Garden” readers … want to learn about ‘tufa trough making? Then click this link to read my instructions on how to make a hypertufa trough. And remember to be mindful of the ratio of water you use in your recipe!

Where Can I Find Recipes & Instructions
To Make An Aged Looking Trough?

I received this email from Stephen who asked:

Dear Artistic Gardener: This is from Sheffield England. Please could you advise me on the “wooden former”, concrete mix, possible wall thickness and dimensions and possible type of chicken wire as strengthener to make a concrete “aged type trough”?

I am referring to what was used as animal water troughs in England long ago. I want to make mine to hold plants. Yours sincerely,
Stephen

My reply:

Hello Stephen:

Thank you for contacting me. I believe the information you want can be found on the 4 Basic Hypertufa Recipes page and the instructions for How To Make A Hypertufa Trough.

I guess you overlooked that information on my site. I have many more pages of information that will be of interest to you about working with hypertufa.

Please go to my main hypertufa page. And then go all the way to the bottom of the page – you’ll see links to all the other pages of information. Note that the very last link is how to age troughs with moss.

I sure hope this helps. Good luck with your project.