Selfsufficientish.com

I was talking to a gardening friend the other day who said he fancied some stone troughs for his garden, but that they were very expensive now that they've become trendy. This reminded me of something I'd seen in a magazine a while ago about making your own fake-stone planters from something called Hypertufa.

I dug out the following website for him, which seems to have reasonable instructions and pictures and I thought you might be interested too: http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00117.asp.

I haven't tried this myself yet, although I may one day when all the (more pressing) garden projects are finished.

I've been trying to find information about hypertufa and just did a search on this forum, and your message popped up - so thanks very much, the link you provided is very useful! Just wondered, did you ever get round to trying it?

My dad made a hypertufa planter for my mum a couple of years ago, and its still going strong. He does'nt know it yet, but my mum has volunteered him to help dd5 make one so she can put it outside her playhouse.
I think he used some wooden dowling to prop up the internal box and therefore avoided having to drill out any drainage holes as he just took out the dowling.