The best thing about hypertufa troughs is that they give us a place to plant tiny fragile things that might otherwise be lost, trampled, or overtaken in our gardens. They are also especially perfect for anyone interested in alpines who might not have a dedicated or perfectly situated rock garden. – We do have a dedicated rock garden but in a less than ideal situation. It’s in partial to full shade at the lowest (wettest) point on the property and we’ve found that a lot of alpines, which need a high pH and well-drained scree, struggle. In troughs, we can at least give those plants high pH (leached from the cement) and decent drainage by adding plenty of sand or grit to the potting mix.

That said, we haven’t purchased many precious alpines for the troughs (yet. – I’m lusting for saxifrages) and we filled them instead with the tiny stonecrops we can never resist when we see them for sale, and pieces of various and sundry Rock Garden survivors. I wish I had taken pictures of these troughs earlier in the season because the fall color that makes the plants extra pretty also makes them harder to identify. Please speak up if it looks like I didn’t hit the nail on the head. (Click on pictures for larger view.)

1. Sedum cauticola ‘Lidakense’- summer foliage is blue-grey, flowers are hot pink.

2. S. dasyphyllum – summer foliage is very blue and VERY tiny.

3. S. spurium ‘Voodoo’ – deep burgundy-brown foliage.

4. S. ‘Angelina’ – might need to keep an eye on this bright-orange/chartreusey  beauty. Given half a chance it will fill the whole trough. (Funny that it has all but disappeared in these troughs.)

5. Ajuga ‘Chocolate Chip’ – probably the cutest bugle ever. Its foliage is much more purplish  in the summer and does really well in partial shade.

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1. Sisynchrium ‘Lucerne’ – blue-eyed grass. Blooms tiny purplish blue stars in early summer.

2. Sedum dasyphyllum

3. S. spathuifolium ‘Cape Blanco’

4. S. ewersii – also has blue summer foliage and it’s very possible that I’ve confused it with S.  cauticola ‘Lidakense’ above. S. ewersii trails and S. cauticola has reddish stems…

5. S. ‘Angelina’

6. Ajuga ‘Chocolate Chip’

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1. Sedum sieboldii – October daphne. blue summer foliage.

2. S. dasyphyllum

3. Armeria maritima – Sea thrift. pink pom-pom flowers on and off all summer over a tuft of thread-leaf foliage.

4. Sedum kamtschaticum ‘The Edge’ – larger foliage than the others, delicately smudged in yellow with yellow flowers.

All of these plants are hardy and the troughs will stay in place outside all winter. Please let me know if you think any of these things are misidentified – and if I’ve managed to help you get a vision for creating an even prettier trough tapestry of your own. (I have all sorts of hopes and plans for next season’s batch!)

Ever since Gail and I went on a bus trip to Wave Hill – eight or so years ago – we’ve been coveting hypertufa troughs. A year or two after that trip we each made a couple, then a year later a couple more. After that, Fred and Dan made some, including the thyme bench seat in the herb bed and an enormous trough that might never leave the container bed. But we have wanted more. And there’s nothing like wanting something to make you notice it everywhere. They’ve been showing up in every magazine; there are books full of ideas; we’ve noticed them tucked into gardens and out in front and center displays, and they’re all over Kathy and Chris Tracy’s Avant Gardens Nursery, in all shapes and sizes filled with the most luscious combinations of plants.  We’re talking serious trough envy here.

So we hatched a plan to make a bunch more to fill our Display Garden stone bench bed (an abundance of anything in one place can make a gardener feel rich) and if we have enough left over, we’ll tuck them in other beds here and there. We might even leave some on display in front of the pump house because they’re so sweet against the cobbles.

For anyone who isn’t already familiar with hypertufa, it’s a Portland cement mixture that is meant to mimic something called tufa, which is a precipitated limestone (according to wikipedia). Being porous and high pH both real tufa and the ersatz version is a perfect container material for alpines among other little lovelies. It’s also sturdy enough to stay outside over the winter and not quite as heavy to move around as straight concrete.

Gail and I obsessively researched recipes – there are many possible variations – and for our first go we tried two. Both included Portland cement and peat. One batch had perlite, the other vermiculite. To those mixes we also added a handful of microfiber concrete reinforcement and then a whole lot of water. We also obsessively collected molds, everything from a saucer sled to nursery pots to trash cans to jello molds to cardboard boxes.

Now that we’ve done one batch and are preparing for another morning spent wearing rubber gloves and dust masks, we know what we’ll do differently. This time we’ll go with the vermiculite mix – it feels smoother to the touch and more elegant. We’ll also line more of our molds in plastic bags. Even molds heavily greased with vegetable oil didn’t want to give up their stuff. Luckily, almost all of the pots and troughs we made were sturdy enough after curing for 4 days to knock out of their molds. (Only one will live inside its aluminum jello mold forever.) The cardboard boxes were the easiest to release and those troughs are actually pretty cool looking.

Our recipe: 1 part Portland cement; 1.5 parts peat moss; 1.5 parts vermiculite and a small amount of microfiber concrete reinforcement. Add enough water to make mud the consistency of cottage cheese.

Have you made any hypertufa pots or troughs or garden ornaments? Do you have any helpful hints to share – or maybe a different favorite recipe?

In the last post I mentioned that Gail and I just picked more vegetables for the East Bay Food Pantry. It’s no accident that we still have veg to pick. Back in the middle of September we took a little gamble and seeded down a big quilt of lettuce, rows of super-sweet and tiny early Napoli carrots, spinach, and Scarlet Queen Red Stems salad turnips (meant to be eaten raw!) It was late to be seeding but we also put row covers over the lettuce and spinach just in case, and the gamble (more of time than money since seeds are cheap) paid off big time. Given that the weather has been so mild with no real killing frost yet, we wouldn’t have even needed the row covers – uncovered lettuce in the raised beds is fine. When we cleaned out the vegetable garden in October we also left other tough-as-nails cool crops standing, like kale and Swiss chard. What’s truly surprising to me is how surprised the folks were to receive more fresh veg now, this close to winter. Granted, this is the first time we’ve made an effort to grow vegetables past summer but is it truly unusual to take advantage of fall?

I’m no vegetable gardener but that might have to change. Spending that hour or two harvesting at the end of November was like a little revelation. This is doable. And especially this time of year, when fresh veg tastes like a luxury (if you could see the crowds of people at Bristol’s new winter farmer’s market grinning over the gorgeous clubs of Brussels’s sprouts, bales of lettuce, carrots and enormous sweet potatoes you’d think none of us had ever had eaten well past August) a little extra effort at the end of summer – even if it’s a gamble – seems more than worthwhile.

This harvest has inspired Gail and me to make a resolution (a little early for New Year’s but what the hey) to get back out in the vegetable bed in March to at least seed down peas and greens in the raised beds under row covers. And who knows, maybe next year we’ll shoot for a four season vegetable garden à la Elliot Coleman.

Are you still eating from your garden?