Hypertufa – How It’s Made

What exactly is hypertufa? Well, it’s a man made tufa looking material that is used to create a variety of garden art objects. It’s a sort of artificial stone that was created to substitute the natural tufa rock. In this article we will take a look at how it’s made and what uses it has.

The materials needed to make hypertufa include Portland Cement, peat moss, sand or gravel, perlite, vermiculite and others. There are a lot of different recipes and combinations of the ingredients you can use. The most basic hypertufa mixture will contain Portland cement, peat moss, sand or perlite, and of course water.

Hypertufa offers almost limitless possibilities for decorating your garden. It can be used to make all kinds of planters and pots, troughs, stepping stones, fake rocks, boulders, totems, sculptures, and many other decorative and/or functional items for your garden. Your imagination is the only limit.

Making hypertufa garden items is simple. In reality, it’s not much different than making a child’s mud-pie. For molds you can use various containers, just look around the house – any kind of plastic bowl or container, a cardboard box, wastebaskets, bowls, vases, plates, and so on.

Once the mixture and molds are prepared, you can start creating. Apply the mixture to the the mold (about 1 inch thick), cover it with plastic bag, seal it and put it in a sunny place for about 3 to 5 days. After that remove from the mold, re-cover with plastic bag and let it cure for about a month or so. And you’re done.

If you’re a beginner, start with something simple and work your way up. This is the best way to learn. Making hypertufa is not much different than making a cake. And you don’t start with a 6-tier cake, do you?

Hypertufa is certainly a wonderful way to spruce up your garden. It’s fun, easy and not expensive to make. And it gets your creative juices going.