>Cathy wrote; > "I have been intending to do some hypertufa troughs myself >the last year ortwo. What do you use as a 'form'? Want to tell us a >little about the >procedure?" Dear Cathy; There are volumes of info on this so I'll just give you a few tips that worked for me. Do this with a friend-another procrastinator helps. It is great fun together. Do not wait. I procrastinated for years. Then I made about 5 or 6 troughs in 2 weeks and plan on more this year. Keep the mix simple and BE SURE to add a coloring agent (We got ours at the local Lowe's store.) We like the terracotta color additive. Forms; We both started simple by piling the hypertufa mix on the outside of stainless steel bowls (large kitchen mixing bowls for a fast round trough) and an old oval turkey baking pan We then tried piling the hypertufa an the inside of larger kitchen molds and liked this look much better. These included plastic storage bins, old enameled pans etc. Eventually we made some foam forms and these do look really good if you want classic rectangular toughs. We only used outer forms, no inner walls. That is we made forms for the outside dimensions and filled the interior surface. We did not add an inner form to keep the walls straight and smooth as some books suggest. We like the irregularity. In fact this irregularity is neat and can certainly be encouraged. We found it was fairly easy, but time consuming. Starting in mid morning we could each make a trough or two. The next day we would unmold and make a second set of troughs in a slightly longer time. We settled down to unmolding and cleaning and shaping one trough and making a second trough in one 'day' (well 3 or 4 hours) Wear rubber/plastic gloves and prepare to get messy, dirty etc. Use lots of tarps etc. Please read up on the details and then just do it. The first was the hardest to do, but then it got routine and easy encouraging us to try more. We bought some cheap close-out hemispherical plastic lamp shades - pretty tacky, but when filled with colored hypertufa and pushed together the resulting "stone" sphere looks great in the garden. These sell in garden centers for $30 and took some left over hypertufa, minutes and cost almost nothing. Smaller troughs made in an old enamel dishpan are really cute even for annuals and such. John Lonsdale- these are all new and I haven't tried ANY Crocus (yet!) - or any bulbs even. Can you suggest the bulbs (including Crocus) that really do the best? BTW after less than a year, I did plant a couple small Viola pedata in one and they are looking far healthier than anyplace else in garden. And sempervivum and small sedum seem to love troughs Sorry I went on, but really Cathy just get a few friends together for a weekend and have fun. Jim W. -- Dr. James W. Waddick 8871 NW Brostrom Rd. Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711 USA Ph. 816-746-1949 E-fax 419-781-8594 Zone 5 Record low -23F Summer 100F +