Hahaha, that's hilarious Al! I took a closer look but I couldn't identify any pinwheels or butterflies or alphabet letters in your pics. I have someone on the hypertufa forum telling me she doesn't bother drilling drain holes because the hypertufa wicks water away just fine without them and her plants do great long-term in her pots. I wonder if different recipes have different effects as far as whether they "breath" or "wick"? I am trying to find out what recipe she is using to figure out why hers wick and mine don't seem to.

Hi Rhonda I don't use fine molds. All my work is hand cast for shape only and then finished with brushes and other tools. I'm never trying for a super smooth finish and I do use a very dry mix to keep maximum strength. But you can get a glassy smooth surface with a runnier mix or a trowel.. Perlite mixes do some odd things. You would expect them to get dryer as the dry perlite sucks up moisture but they don't. They tend to get runnier as time goes on so you have to be very careful adding water. Like a superplaticizer mix it can become liquid in a hurry. As for bug holes, I don't get those in my mixes but I do get small flat surface imperfections that are easily removed with a brush. I can't explain them. I suspect they are caused by my home made release oils. That said you can't go wrong by trying this Perlite. It's cheap and if it does work out it works great in the garden as a soil lightener.:)

ann, I'm going to assume that the "5/6" near your name in your first post is your zone. Hypertufa can remain outdoors in your zone....if it's potted up with a tree or shrub (I've got sedums in some that stay out all Winter) or you tie a piece of plastic over the top so moisture can't get in and if it's on soil, place a board underneath to break contact with the ground or if it's empty, roll it over so the bottoms facing up and place under a deck or cover with plastic. That's the same way that you would treat a concrete planter. Did you do a search on this forum or look at the FAQ page? 1) whatever you did to the concrete to make it crumble could happen to your hypertufa. I would guess too much dye and too much liquid. 2) strong hypertufa recipe===equal parts portland cement, sand and peat moss. Bash the peat moss around to smooth out the lumps and remove any sticks. I sift mine. 3) if the sides of the mold are smooth and you pack the hypertufa mix tight, the sides should be smooth. 4) I don't add colorant to the mix. I paint or stain or leave natural. 5) The size planter you are making should cure in 24 hours. 6) You'd have to check with your mould manufacturer but the hypertufa can stay outdoors in your zone. 7) You don't want to see perlite granules, then don't use perlite. The only way you won't see perlite or peat moss or vermiculite is not to use them because all of them will show through. You'd have to make the planters out of mortar or get a vibrator to vibrate the molds to bring out the cream and that doesn't always work. 8) It's a planter, why would you want it waterproof? 9) Too much colorant! You did right, coat with vegetable oil. I use the spray cans of oil to coat my molds. Elkski, Concrete will cure 90% in 7 days but it never completely cures. You can plant in week. Most plants aren't that sensitive to the lime and from watering the plant the lime will leach out. I do use a water bath (just water) to leach out the lime because until it's leached out, someone that's sensitive to the lime can get a nasty burn. "the dry powders I got said 1 # to aa bag of cement maximum" Most common bag of cement weights 94 lbs. You do NOT need fibers for these little planters! Billie

Flagtruck, Thanks for the tips, that helps a lot. I'm sorry, I didn't keep the instructions or write them down. Really, there's not a lot to it. Just make some odd-shaped armatures, cover them with tufa, and carve like crazy 24-36 hours later. Then coat it with a cement + water slurry (like thin pancake batter). If you exaggerate the cracks it will look just about right after the slurry. I think the recipe I used was 1:1:1:1 cement:vermiculite:perlite:peat. The stain was just normal artist's acrylic paint diluted with tons of water. I applied layer after layer of different colored washes. I hope that all makes sense. The hardest part is just carving random shapes. I looked at a picture of a rock and just tried to copy it the best I could. Or, maybe we could swap tufa for plants :) Please contact me if you need more info. Justin