Hypertufa!

In case you are wondering, hypertufa is a mixture of portland cement and other ingredients used to make a lighter weight vesion of cement items.  I use peat moss and perlite in my pots.  The peat moss breaks down over time, leaving interesting pits and grooves in the matrix. The rough surface of the hypertufa serves to make the pots look rustic, and to allow moss to grow on them more easily.

 

 Hypertufa is very forgiving.  In fact some of my favorite pieces are my mistakes!  I used an old paint can inside a bucket to make this pot.  Because a paint can has rims on the top and bottom, it would not slide out.  So the paint can remains within the pot, but you'd never know it once the flowers fill out!  If you look really closely, you can see the top rim of the paint can peeking out.

This is another of my favorite mistakes.  I made this pot by turning a plastic pot upside down, and covering it with a thick layer of hypertufa mix.  The "mud" is very heavy, and naturally slumps, creating a cone shape that is thicker at the bottom (which becomes the top when the pot is finished).  I forgot to cover it with plastic while it was curing, and the bottom dried out too quickly.  It crumbled away when I removed the mold, leaving me with a thick, cone shaped, donut of hypertufa!  Luckily my Lavender plant appreciates the excellent drainage provided by the bottomless pot.  It's roots did eventually grow into the dirt under the pot, so it is now permanently living in one spot!

My Garden Grotesques, or Grots are my favorite hypertufa projects.  I used a gallon sized pot to form the opening in the top of his head, and an inverted small pot to form his mouth opening.  Two polished stones become his eyes. From there it was all free hand.  Have you every made mud pies?  It is very messy, but great fun, patting and moulding this pile of oozy, sticky hypertufa mix into a Grot.  His open mouth serves as a toad cave and decorative grass makes great hair!  Every garden needs at least one Grotesque!