Plants love hypertufa because the porous material provides great drainage. Making a hypertufa planter has been on my list of want-to-dos for a while now, maybe years. But I still haven’t tried it. I have no good excuse because it’s reportedly pretty easy and really fun. The only kicker is the setting time — it takes several days — so hypertufa isn’t as much about instant gratification as it may seem. What it is about? It’s about creating a planter or garden ornament that looks like stone but is light as air, and as a bonus, is porous enough to provide great drainage for plants. Genius.
So how do you create something that looks this good?
Hypertufa planters are molded from a mixture of Portland cement, peat moss, sand or perlite, and water. The result is a super lightweight garden container that looks like stone.
The gallery below gives step-by-step instructions for making a hypertufa planter, and I’m gonna use it as I make my version.
You’ll see a list of materials above, but here it is again in case you want an easier-to-print version.
Materials and Tools:
- Mold (can be a saucer)
- Dishpan
- Planter or box
- Plastic wrap (any type of lightweight plastic to line the mold)
- Containers to mix ingredients and for measuring
- Gloves (rubber or latex)
- Face mask for the mouth and nose
- Dowel rods, cut into six-inch lengths, for making drainage holes (ordinary 3/4 to one-inch diameter sticks will do)
- 1/4-inch hardware cloth for screening peat moss (optional)
- Wire brush to roughen finish on outside of trough (optional)
- Portland cement, one part
- Peat moss, one to one-and-a-half parts
- Coarse sand or perlite, one to one-and-a-half parts (Note: Perlite will make the trough lighter in weight, but sand will give it a smoother finish.)
- Water, one part
I’ll be honest — I may not get around to this project until next weekend. In the meantime, tell me in the comments below — have you messed around with hypertufa? What did you think?