Garden Centre

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

A home fit for geraniums ...

And this is what they are going to go into! Okay, it doesn’t look terribly exciting at present, but this is a stone peat-box or (because we don’t make them from peat anymore, that being a relatively non-renewable resource) a hyper-tufa box, which ‘himself’ has made expressly for my geraniums.

Hyper-tufa is a cast rock-like material which can be used to make relatively inexpensive pots for the garden. It looks like rock, can be cast into almost any shape, is very lightweight and also strong enough to withstand the freeze/thaw cycle of most northern climates. We like it for three reasons:

1 – it is relatively heavy which means it doesn’t blow over in the all too frequent Sussex gales, which many other planters do

2 – it weathers really fast, after a month it looks old, after a year it looks ancient, and our oldest trough is five years old; rich in mosses and lichens and still coping perfectly with the vagaries of our weather

3 – we can make it into any shape we like.

Basic recipe

It’s so simple, just mix - part cement, 1 part sand, 2 parts compost

Then add water slowly until you get a thick porridgy texture. A mould can be made from two wooden boxes with the inner box about two inches smaller than the outer and the inner one covered in bin bags – don’t use cling film, it’s not tough enough! Pour the mixture into the bigger box to a depth of about an inch or so, the smaller box is then placed on the mixture and the remaining hyper-tufa rammed down the sides to make the walls of the container. Leave to cure for about three weeks, longer in damp weather. Now add drain holes as required using a screwdriver or drill – or use dowels coated in Vaseline that can just be knocked out of the bottom of the trough when it’s cured. Fill the trough with water or leave out in the rain for a couple of weeks to take all the chemical effects of the cement out of the equation before making drainage though.

Labels: container plants, garden flowers, geranium, hypertufa, troughs

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:30 AM

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