Hypertufa Planters – how to create a stone trough

We all love stone containers, but they’re not cheap. But there is a solution – it’s called hypertufa. You can create hypertufa planters, pots and troughs which look really stone-like for almost nothing. I did this recently so thought I’d share how.

Hypertufa Planters – How I discovered the Stuff

I got into the world of hypertufa thanks to my lovely friend Kay. Kay is incredibly good at arts and crafts. Her garden is like an Aladdin’s cave of creative ideas. In fact when I blogged about how to make plant pots from packaging and other things, I wrote a whole section on Kay’s ideas.

Anyway, I mentioned to Kay that I had a very ugly old Belfast china sink which I wanted to use in the garden but it was stained and chipped – so unsightly. Kay suggested I cover it in hypertufa to make it look like a stone trough! I’d never heard of the stuff, but given that stone troughs can cost £1000+ and I absolutely love them, I was keen to know more! Happily Kay said she was going to be doing one herself and kindly offered to show me how.

So here’s what we did. By the way, if you don’t have an old china sink you can get one pretty cheaply as while a lovely immaculte one might be pricey, you can buy a stained or chipped old one (which as you’re going to cover it is all you need) for less than £20.

What is Hypertufa?

Hypertufa looks like concrete but is much lighter. That’s because when making up the concrete you don’t add the usual gravel to the sharp sand and cement but instead just add compost.

Some recipes suggest using peat moss as when it rots it helps the hypertufa container look more stone like. However, for environmental reasons this is obviously a no no. Others suggest adding perlite or vermiculite to create texture. But Kay and I didn’t bother with all that faff!

Hypertufa Planters – What You’ll Need

• Old china sink
• PVA
• Brush
• 1 part regular garden compost (ideally with coir in it) – peat free of course
• 1 part cement
• 1 part sharp sand
• Old wheelbarrow
• Water
• Rubber gloves
• Spade to mix
• White wine (optional!!!)

Method – Preparing the Sink

Stand the sink on some bricks or wooden boards, ideally on a sturdy old table, so you can work on it without breaking your back. The china sink has a slippery shiny surface. So you then need to ensure the hypertufa mixture is going to stick to it. To do this you first clean it as best you can and dry it.

Then coat the outside of the sink with a layer of craft glue (this is PVA glue). For the ‘stone trough’ to look authentic, the mixture is going to need to go over the lip of sink and inside to just below soil level. So add the PVA 2 or 3 inches down on the inside of the sink too.

We slapped the PVA on as it doesn’t need to be neat. In fact putting it on with rough old back and forth, horizontal brush strokes is perfect, as you want to create ridges for the hypertufa to key onto. For the same reason some suggest putting a little sand in the glue to make the sink’s surface a little rough.

We then had a glass of wine with other friends Ken and Ginny, while we waited for the glue to dry a bit (you want it drying but still tacky). It’s not essential to have friends with you when making your hypertufa planters, but it’s a lot of fun if you do!

As we were making our hypertufa planters on a hot sunny day, the glue didn’t take long to get to this point. On a wet/damp cool day you might need to wait a bit.

Mixing the Hypertufa

We mixed together in an old wheelbarrow equal parts of cement, sharp sand and the coir-based peat free compost. We then added water and stirred the mixture with a spade. You want the mixture to be quite thick like cookie dough – something you can shape – so not sloppy. This is because you are going to press it onto your sink. If it’s too sloppy it will slide off.

We made the mixture in two batches, as we didn’t know how long it would take us to press it onto our sinks and didn’t want it drying out if we took a while.

As a result of this, plus the white wine, I’m not sure how many shovels each of cement, sharp sand and compost we used to cover our sinks in total! However Kay has helpfully suggested that 5 spades of each ingredient is probably needed per sink.

Applying

We applied the hypertufa using our hands. But you MUST wear rubber gloves as cement is really horrid stuff to get on your skin. I started at the top and worked down, pressing a thick layer of the hypertufa onto the sink. You’re not trying to create a smooth even surface as you’re trying to recreate the look of stone. So create a stipple effect with your fingers as you go.

This is tricky as you don’t want a uniform stipple as that will look manufactured and won’t look real either! You want the surface to look rough and hewn but not concretey. Something on which mosses and lichen will be able to take hold – as that’s what makes real stone troughs like the one below look so wonderful.

I was a bit useless at working the surface. Whereas Kay took more trouble. As a result I think her finished sink looks better than mine. But I’m still pleased with mine.

I found it pretty easy to press on the hypertufa. And if you were working efficiently and not larking about with your mates it would probably not take much longer than an hour to cover a sink.

But don’t rush. You need to take care to cover all of the enamel. If any white is left visible, the illusion of it being a stone trough will be ruined. For the same reason you need to go over the top edge of the sink to below soil level.

I found that it easy to over-look the very bottom edge of the base. So pay particular attention there. This is why you must stand the sink on bricks – as you need to be able to put the hypertufa right to the base.

Drying your Hypertufa Planters

You don’t want the hypertufa to dry too quickly. So, if you do this on a very hot day, you might want to cover your hypertufa planters with an old damp towel just to slow down the drying process. For the first few hours after you’ve finished, you can go back and play around with the surface, though I didn’t want to disturb mine as I was scared of knocking the hypertufa off!

Experts say it takes two full days for the trough to set, but I left mine at Kay’s for a week before attempting to move it, as the sink is heavy and was going to be trundled back through our village to my house by Mr F-W on a little trolley thing he has (confusingly called a sack truck – but it’s not a truck!!). I feared the hypertufa might drop off or crack during the journey but it was fine.

Planting Up

Once you’ve made your hypertufa container you then have the fun job of planting it up. If you want inspiration for an entire planting scheme, I planted up a real stone trough which Mr F-W bought me for my birthday just over a year ago. It’s in a semi-shaded spot. You can see the planting scheme here.

However, for my new ‘stone’ trough, I didn’t think too deeply. I simply planted it up with some Heuchera Silver Scrolls cuttings plus some Geranium macrorrhizum White-Ness cuttings which I had in pots waiting for a home. As time has marched on so the geraniums are taking over. So I will remove some to give the heucheras more room.

Kay has put some lovely grasses in hers – looks like Stipa Tenuissima (Mexican Feathergrass) plus a Leucanthemum Hosmariense. Though I could be wrong. She jokingly tells me that she planted it up before moving it to the right spot and so can’t move it now! But I think it looks super where it is.

Obviously in your ‘stone troughs’ you could put succulants too, they look really effective. The world’s really your planting oyster.

Or you could use the stone sink as part of a water feature?

Hypertufa Planters – What Else?

Beyond covering old sinks, you can make other kinds of hypertufa planters. For instance you could cover old plastic plant pots to make them look like stone. Or if you stand a smaller cardboard box inside a larger one, you can use hypertufa to make an entire stone container. You need to put a layer of hypertufa in the bottom of the large box first, then stand the smaller box inside it, and pour hypertufa between the gap in the sides. I’ve not tried this but will do so and share how I get on in a future blog.

Kay has also partially covered a ball with concrete to make a round bowl shaped planter. And she’s made obelisks using hypertufa! I don’t know how she made the moulds for them but will set up another session with her to learn how to do this and again will share it with you dear reader.

In fact maybe I need to create a whole future section for my blog with craft-based gardening ideas called Kay’s Crafty Corner! What do you think? Do let me know. In the meantime, happy gardening – and making x.