Gardening - Hypertufa Troughs
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Sophisticated gardeners have discovered a different way of potting up
plants: gardening in hyupertufa troughs
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Trough gardening originated in the Orient and was very
popular in England during the 1920's and 1930's. The
English used old stone watering troughs as containers
for their alpine (mountain) plants. These vessels were
carved out of stone, and used as feeding and watering
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for livestock. When farmers replaced these containers with modern ones, gardeners, seeing the
porous rock tubs as ideal planting media, began to collect and covet these large pieces. This
concept quickly spread to the United States but, as the availability of natural troughs declined,
gardeners looked for substitutes.
Gardeners turned to a soft, lightweight, porous rock, called tufa. A natural
limestone, tufa comes from the British Columbia and California coastlines. It is formed
naturally when water action over thousands of years dissolves certain minerals in
composite rocks to create a rough textured, porous
rock. This material is an ideal natural solution to the
historic trough material because it breathes and
holds a suitable amount of moisture is easy to carve
and is lightweight. Tufa is also capable of
withstanding northern climates. It is, however, very
expensive and often hard to get. When the supply of
tufa rock became scarce, gardeners looked for other materials to use. Today gardeners make
or buy stone-like troughs made of light-weight ingredients called Hypertufa.
Hypertufa is a synthetic rocklike version of tufa. It is usually made of peat moss,
perlite and Portland cement. This combination makes the troughs light-weight and
porous. Hypertufa troughs are made in all shapes and sizes, from small, shallow
bowl-shaped containers to large, deep, square containers, not unlike the watering
troughs of olde England. These troughs look old, attract lichens and mosses, and
resemble stone. This type of container garden offers many advantages. They're easy to
care for and will tolerate considerable neglect. They look wonderful inside as well as
out. They may be left outside year round. The thick walls of these planters act as an
insulator against the harsh elements, thus nurturing the plants.
The first troughs imitated the look of the original English stone sinks and were fashioned
by applying a mixture of Portland cement, peat moss, and vermiculite or perlite over
chicken-wire reinforcement. Modern trough makers have eliminated the cumbersome
chicken wire, adding strands of a concrete reinforcement called Fibermesh to the recipe
to provide the same sort of strength.
If you are interested in learning more about hypertufa and planting
garden troughs, these are the best books available...
These planters can be made in a few hours, require inexpensive
materials found in hardware stores and weigh a fraction of the
stone originals. The project requires little artistic talent and
no special masonry skills. For those of you who don't think you
have what it takes, these troughs can also be purchased at
local garden centers. Hypertufa troughs are perfect for pots,
planters, decorative stepping stones, bird baths, water
courses, and lawn ornaments.
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