Re: Hypertufa troughs

In a message dated 6/26/02 3:30:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
gentian21@insightBB.com writes:

<< Water flows through the hypertufa.  This allows you to heavily water plants
 that need cooling but also need air to the roots.  You get evaporative
 cooling from this.  You can hose down the trough and not water the plant
 itself. >>


I am no concrete expert here but this theory is not supported by makers of 
troughs.  We found that if we added enough organic material to the mix to 
make tunnels and holes through the sidewalls, the trough fell apart before a 
few watering.

Originally hypertufa was developed to take the place of tufa rock, rare and 
expensive, that grew special sorts of alpine plants.

Here is the link to the Alpine  archives that are free to all searchers and 
contains hundreds of messages on hypertufa.

Somewhere near the end, someone said there are just concrete containers, 
prettied up and nobody challenged him.  I would think the organic material 
mixed into to the concrete decomposes leaving the spaces Frank is talking 
about.  Mine, from a number of mixes tried here will not provide this service 
to the plants.  Too much peat or spagnum and the trough falls apart. Enough 
concrete and you have  concrete with some panache.

There is a NARGS book written on the subject which is not too expensive, 
under 10.00, I think, and publically marketed.

Link:

 <A HREF="http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/alpine-l.html";>Click here: 
Service Desk : LISTSERV Archives</A> 

It may be that this subject will never conclude.  I attend rocks meetings and 
the argument over who has the right mix and the right procedure goes on.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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