Making Hypertufa

Two weekends ago I headed to Tacoma for the 3-day holiday weekend to spend time with my mom & grammi - and make hypertufa! Hypertufa are concrete-like potting containers that are easy to make. My mom and I had been wanting to give this a try for a long time, and it ended up working out really well!

The basic ingredients: portland cement, pete moss, sand & water!

First step: Find molds for shaping your hypertufa. These can be anything from a square tupperware container, to a terracotta pot, to a kitty litter pan. What is important is that the opening at the top of your shape is not narrower than the base - or you'll never get your hypertufa out of your mold!
Line the mold with a plastic sack, and you're ready to move on to mixing your hypertufa mixture.

Our six shapes set up and ready to go.

Step 2: Mix up your hypertufa recipe! It's something like 3:1...mmm....like 3 parts peat moss to one part sand and one part cement....or maybe it's 3 parts cement to one part peat moss and one part sand? Plus water so that it all holds together. I had the instructions to scan in and include here, but I lost them. Really helpful, eh?

Me - mixing up the goods in the wheel barrow. We wore face masks so we didn't breathe in the cement dust.

Step 3: Press your mixture into the mold! You don't want it to be too thick or your piece will be super heavy - but too thin and it can crack. I think we were shooting for about a 1/2" - 3/4" thick wall, and that seemed to work pretty well.

Mom - putting the finishing touches on the hypertufa.

Step 4: Wait. oh - cover the hypertufa with wet newspaper so they stay damp - and then wait. For about a month. You want to give them plenty of time to dry, although you can turn them out of their molds after about 2 weeks or so. Once they've dried their full four weeks it's recommended that you rinse the insides with a mixture of vinegar & water to cut down on the lime - and then you can go ahead and plant!

A finished, planted hypertufa!