Hypertufa Amaryllis Container for the Holidays

 Hypertufa Amaryllis Container

A hypertufa planting container is perfect for growing your holiday amaryllis bulbs.  It frees them from the plastic, no-drain-hole pots they are sold in. Bulbs planted directly in this hypertufa planting container will not become waterlogged and rot.  The hypertufa breathes, keeping the plant happy and healthy while it is sporting its showstopper blossoms and continues to grow and replenish the bulbs once the blooms have faded. You can leave them in this pot until you plant it outside in your garden in spring.

WHAT YOU NEED:

A sheet of 1 ¼” insulation board

Keyhole hand saw

Coarse angled sanding block

Twenty 3” common nails

Duct tape

Vegetable oil and a brush

Rubber work gloves

Plastic pail or mixing tub

Hypertufa made with your favorite recipe.  

Here is mine: https://fromthesummersgarden.blogspot.com/p/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-ja-x_10.html

Exterior latex paint for adding color accents.

WHAT YOU DO:

1.    Cut four 9” x 9” squares from the sheet of insulation foam using the keyhole saw.

2.    Then cut a base piece from the foam sheet measuring 11.5” square.

3.     Now you will take advantage of the fact that the foam material is easy to carve. Create a striped or plaid pattern on the sides of the mold. Use the keyhole saw to cut kerf lines into one side of each of the four mold pieces.  You can go in just one direction for stripes or do a cross-cut plaid pattern. 

 Note: A kerf is a shallow cut into the surface, probably no more than 1/8 inch deep.

4.    Use the angled edge of the coarse sanding block to widen each saw kerf.  This makes it easier for the hypertufa to capture the textured pattern.

5.     Now join the four pieces of the mold together using 3 three-inch nails per side.  Assemble the pieces in a “chasing pattern, where an end is always attached to the end of another; each piece has nails on just one side.

6.     Then attach the base to one end of the mold using two nails on each side. Finish by wrapping a length of duct tape entirely around the mold for added strength.

7.      Oil the inside of the mold using the brush and vegetable oil. A light coating is fine.

8.      Mix up the hypertufa well to ensure the mixture is homogeneous.

Cast the mold using handfuls of hypertufa and pack each handful onto the side of the mold. Leave the bottom for last. 

9.    Use your gloved fingers to form a smooth, rounded top edge for the container.

10.  Allow the hypertufa to cure and set for three to four days.  It should be as hard as possible before you unmold the container.

To unmold, remove all nails.  Gently pry the sides of the mold. Start with one edge and slowly loosen until you can wiggle the mold piece off of the cast.  Be patient and do this slowly so you do not damage the kerf pattern.

11.  Allow to breathe and dry for a day, and then it is ready for soil and your amaryllis bulbs.

TIP: Leave the container plain or add color using exterior latex paint to coordinate with the amaryllis blossom colors.

Clouds and Sunshine Lemon Meringue Pie

 

Clouds and Sunshine Lemon Meringue Pie

 Ingredients:

Pie Filling

3 cups herbed water

(see instructions below)

 

1 cup white sugar

3 TBS all-purpose flour

6 TBS cornstarch

¼ tsp. salt

 

4 egg yolks beaten  

 

Zest from 3 lemons and 1 grapefruit

Juice from lemons and grapefruit 

4 TBS butter

 

Meringue

 

4 egg whites

½ tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sugar

 

1.  Make herbed water.   Gather 3 six-inch sprigs of lemon balm, 3 of lavender and

3 of bergamot (bee balm).  Rinse and pat dry.  Bring 3 ¼ cups water to boil.  Turn off heat and add the herbs.  Cover and allow to steep for at least 4 hours or overnight.   Strain liquid and reserve liquid.  Discard herbs.

 

2. Prepare and roll out single crust pastry for 9” pie.  Bake in 400-degree F oven for 10-12 minutes or till golden.  Cool on rack.

 

3.  For filling.  Separate egg yolks from whites; reserve whites for meringue.  In medium bowl whisk together egg yolks. 

 

4. In medium saucepan combine sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt.  Gradually stir in the herbed water and mix well.

 

5.  Cook stirring constantly over medium heat until thickened and bubbly.  Reduce heat.  Cook and stir 2 minutes more and remove from heat.  

 

6.  Add about ½ cup of the hot filling to the egg yolks and whisk to mix.  Immediately return to saucepan and mix into the rest of the filling and cook 2 minutes stirring constantly.  Remove from heat. 

 

7.  Add the butter, zest, and juice to the hot mixture in the saucepan, stirring thoroughly to combine.

 

8.  Turn the hot filling into the baked pastry shell.  Place in a 350-degree F oven for 10 minutes to evenly warm the pie.

 

9.  Meanwhile, whisk sugar and cream of tartar into the egg whites in a metal bowl. Place over simmering water and gently warm the mixture until sugar is dissolved and whites are warm to the touch.  Add vanilla and beat hard for 4 minutes until mixture is thick and satiny smooth.

 

10.  Remove pie from oven and immediately spread the meringue from the edges to the center of the pie.  Bake in the 350-degree F oven for 10-15 minutes or until meringue is golden.  Remove from oven and allow to cool before serving.

CAST RELIEF HYEPRTUFA CONTAINER

 

Here is a project that looks forward to the hope of spring and gives you a chance to creatively recycle some of those Amazon boxes.  You will use layers of cardboard to create relief panels that will become part of the mold for this container resulting in a wonderfully textured piece to display favorite plantings.

 

WHAT YOU NEED:

 

Medium shipping box similar to the type Amazon uses

Additional stiff cardboard pieces from more boxes

Duct tape

Box cutter/Xacto knife

Hot glue gun and glue sticks

Vegetable oil and brush

Disposable gloves

Batch of fresh hypertufa

     (Here’s my recipe: https://fromthesummersgarden.blogspot.com/p/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-ja-x_10.html

Click "YOU, ME & HYPERTUFA above

Plastic mixing bowl

Cement trowel and brick

Section of rebar rod

 

WHAT YOU DO:

 

1.        Select a box sized close to what you’d like for your next planting container.  It is more manageable to shoot for something in the small to medium range.

2.        Fold the top flaps of the box out against the side of the box and tape all the way around with duct tape.  Cover the bottom seams of the box with tape as well.

3.        Cut four undersized panels of stiff cardboard from additional cardboard boxes to serve as the relief panel bases. 

4.        Cut simple rectangular shapes from cardboard and use to create layered relief patterns on each of the four panels.  Use at least three layers to ensure sufficient depth for the designs.  Glue the cardboard pieces into place using hot glue. Paint the four relief panels with any type of latex paint to seal and harden the cardboard.

     

5.        Glue the four panels into your taped box mold and give the entire inside a coating of vegetable oil. 

6.        Put on the disposable gloves and mix the hypertufa.  Sprinkle a one-inch layer of the tufa into the bottom of the mold and tamp with a brick to pack it firmly into the mold. 

7.        Pack the textured sides of the mold one handful of tufa at a time pressing it firmly into the design panels.  When you reach the top of the mold form a smooth rounded edge. Press the corner of the brick into each corner for nice straight edges and poke drainage holes in the bottom with the piece of rebar.

  Allow to set and cure for five days.)

Remove all the cardboard from the cast container and clean up rough edges. Once it has dried out, it will be ready for planting. 

   You can highlight the relief with a dry brush coating of paint or even dark mud.

 

Five Fun Container Finishes for Fall

 Five  Fun Container Finishes for Fall

By Steve Hess

 

It’s fun to create flashy colorful finishes on planting containers and they certainly stand out as a definite focal point when needed.  But most of the time its nice to let what is planted in the container be the star and let the container offer a neutral support of the knockout container planting.  Here are five “neutral-ish finishes you can easily apply to terra cotta or hypertufa containers that will preserve their porosity and breathability.

1.        Mud Bath 

Look around your yard and garden for the darkest dirt can find.  Scoop a shovelful or two into a large bowl and add water to make a paintable mud.  Coat the dry container with a thick layer of the wet mud and leave on the container for at least two weeks.  Place the container in the hot sunshine and allow it to bake.  Don’t waste water to clean off the container.  Just plant it up and the rain and will slowly wash away the mud and reveal the nice warm natural stained surface.

2.        White Wash 

Spray the container inside and out with water. Dip a two-inch brush into exterior white latex paint allowing it to enter the paint only ¼ “- ½ “.  This will prevent you from using too much paint at once.  Apply the paint with a light touch using crisscross or cross-hatch strokes.  This will keep the paint from getting into the darker areas.  Allow the container to dry in the sun

 

3.        Green Rub    

Put on a pair of mud gloves  those orange gloves with rubber fingers) and dip your gloved hand directly into exterior latex moss -colored paint.  Just dip the fingers of the glove into the paint.  Run your gloved hands over the surface of the container, allowing paint to rub off onto the container. Apply a heavier amount of paint at the top and create a gradation, gradually reducing the amount of paint until you reach the bottom with no paint at all.  As the paint dries, swipe a moist cloth over the surface to pull off paint from raised textured areas.  You can try two colors of paint as well.

4.        Mosaic Accent   

        This mosaic feature works best on a container with a smooth surface. Decide which        

        area on the containers you like to accent with a focus of mosaic work.  Use urethane

        glue, (E 6000 or Goop) to glue on colored tiles, stones or glass peices.  Allow to dry 

       overnight and grout using sanded grout close to the color of your container.

 

5.        Powder Coat   

In a small plastic bowl mix together 2 cups fine sand and 1 cup of Portland cement.  Then in another bowl, mix 1 cup of white glue with 1 cup Portland cement and enough water to make a creamy paintable mixture.  Lay your container on its side, doing one side one at a time.  Coat the entire surface with the glue/cement mixture. Immediately

Sprinkle the sand cement mixture over the wet surface using a mesh strainer, again, less is more.  When all four sides have been coated, place the container upright and do the top edges going down into the inside about 3-4 inches. Allow to dry in the hot sun.

 

Don't Trash it, Fix It

 Don’t Trash It, Fix It

 

Making new is fun, but repairing something you had for a long time is also a good thing.  

No matter how well you or someone else has made something there comes a time when it crumbles apart, a tree branch falls or a maintenance person mis-steps and a cherished container, stake or stone is broken. When something breaks, it is not always the end.  Here’s a good rule of green thumb: if it break into two or three pieces, it may be repairable, if there are more pieces than that, it is good policy to just let it go.

One reason hypertufa and cement are desirable is that they can be added to and repaired at any time versus something like terra cotta or higher-fired ceramics..  Once ceramic breaks, it can be glued together but will also show a visible sign of breaking.  With hypertufa, you can disguise and heal a break and many times the repair is unnoticeable.

Here’s what to do if you have a broken hypertufa or cement that is in good enough shape to repair. 

 What You Need 

Stiff plastic brush

Soap and water

Urethane glue (Goop or E6000)

Sticky masking tape

1” and 2” flat paint brushes

Sanded grout or sand mix cement 

White glue (Elmer’s)

Trowel and brick

What You Do

1.         Remove all loose dirt and rubble with the stiff brush.

2.        Wash all pieces in a warm bath of soap and water.  Allow to dry thoroughly in the sun.

3.        Assemble the broken pieces together to see how they fit.  If the repair will need propping or weighting to hold in place, get your weighted pieces and /or tape ready ahead of time.

4.        Glue the pieces together using the urethane glue. Watch for oozing or dribbles and wipe clean. Prop and tape to hold together.  Allow to dry overnight.  

5.        If there are larger pieces missing, you will need to mix a small amount of hypertufa to fill in the gaps.  The grout or cement will be heavier and harder to fill a larger gap. 

6.        Mix no more than ½ cup of the sanded grout/cement mix with water and 1 teaspoon of white glue to make a runny paste.  Brush the repaired area with water to moisten the surface and then apply the mix  to heal the broken area.  

7.        Allow the grout to stiffen and then use a clean, dry brush to shape and feather the grout disguising the repaired area. Allow to dry overnight.

8.        Burnish the repaired area with a trowel or brick to blend it with the exiting finish of the container and your piece is ready to back into the garden.

Here is an example of broken and repaired garden art:

Sculpture pieces led back together.

 Hypertufa mixed and used to heal the break line.

Repaired sculpture- You cannot tell it was broken.

 

 

 

 

FAMILY MILESTONE ACTIVITY

 I was “chosen” by my family from various towns in north central Wisconsin, to be the host for a summer gathering.  It was an exciting prospect and somewhat of a milestone since this group seldom is gathered in one place and was probably the last time my mom would be able to travel the distance. While we did the usual visits to popular KC attractions, I felt we needed to do something creative that would mark our time together and at the same time provide a setting for chatter, laughter, and interaction.  One day during the visit, I gathered them and announced we were going to do a creative project together. We were going to create a series of sculptural vertical stakes that would be installed in my garden, that’s right, they were to stay together as one piece and would someday be passed on to other family members. 

 Forging through the whining and complaints, we soon were so engrossed we weren’t even talking at first. Turns out it worked like a charm and my family can’t stop talking about the meaningful fun they had.  This group project idea could work with almost any activity, the key is to be organized and prepared in advance, so it runs smoothly and is a roaring success! Here is what we did.

 

I am a gardener who loves working with cement, I used this for inspiration and technique.  You can use what you have and do to make the activity your own. Before the guests arrived, I designed a series of garden stakes that were conceptual stems and leaves- very simple shapes cast from insulation foam molds and sand concrete mix.  The stems featured a recessed center rectangle perfect for glass mosaic.

Family members were given different stem sizes and were asked to paint in color where they wished from a limited color palette.   

While the paint was drying, they collected glass pieces from a glass buffet full of a rainbow of colored glass and mirror fragments.

Each person cemented the glass onto their stem and grouted it. 

The final step was to add paint to the leaf shapes and fit them onto the stems.  I installed the stakes in the garden early in the morning on the day everyone was to return home.  The last day's surprise was to see their finished work on display as a milestone of our fun time together.