The-Artistic-Garden's Blog

A Frustrated Hypertufa Trough Maker Seeks Helpful Advice

I received an email this week asking me:

A friend and I tried one of your basic hypertufa recipes without adding the fiber mesh. Our results are very crumbly. I think we goofed by not using it, right? Where does one find fiber mesh? NewLearner

—————
My reply:
Hi NewLearner:

I hate to say it, but I don’t believe the lack of fiber mesh in your basic recipe was the cause for a crumbly failure. Sounds like the amount of water you used and/or wrong proportions of ingredients was your problem. Continue reading

A Reader Asks If She Can Successfully Use Hypertufa
To Bring New Life To Her Strawberry Jar

I received an email from Lael asking me:

I have a terracotta strawberry jar that is flaking off on the surface. I want to cover it with hypertufa. I would use about 1/2″ to 1″ layer, and leave the jar in place. Do you think that would work? I love your site and have made several spheres and a planter.

My reply:

Hi Lael:
Yes – your idea of using hypertufa to resurface your jar would work, as long as you do a really thorough job of scraping off all loose flakes and clean off any dirt, etc.

Then I would suggest to wet down the jar, apply a good coat of bonding agent to the jar; add some bonding agent into your hypertufa mixture and then apply it. Click here to learn more about hypertufa bonding agents.

But … do you want the peat moss to decompose for little pits and crevices? Or would perhaps a “pure” concrete recipe be better for this project if you want a smooth surface (since I don’t know what final look you are trying to achieve)?

All going well hypertufa or concrete ought to stick onto the terra cotta forever.

Good luck!

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!