A group of six hardy club members who are participating in the Alpine trough class in the upcoming flower show, met in Margaret and Larry Tezak’s garage in late January for a messy, but ultimately fun and rewarding workshop to learn how to build our own hypertufa troughs. Margaret and Larry are the heroes of this attempt. They did at least two dry runs beforehand to try and figure out how to do this project successfully and Margaret also gathered all the materials we would need – peat, Quik-Dry Portland cement, perlite and small amounts of fiber mesh to pull the mixture together. We also ultimately acquired the services of Dominique Turnbell, who has sold his troughs at the DBG plant sale every May for years, but has retired. We are on our own now!
Dominique was a huge help the day of the workshop, helping us judge just the right amount of water to make the ingredients not too mushy and not too dry. Mother Nature also cooperated, giving us a warm enough day that everything set up nicely. The troughs have been curing in everyone’s garages since then and have now have been moved outside in preparation for planting. We did have to shrink the workshop because we realized the fifteen participants who had originally signed up would have been too much for the space. Margaret and I promise we will do this again for anyone who is interested, possibly this May, but certainly this summer or early fall.
-Story and photos by Mary F.
