paperwhite watch

The weekend after Thanksgiving, I bought a paperwhite kit at Lowe's.

It comes with everything you need to plant. Also estimates blooms in 4-5 weeks.

I wrapped the plastic pot in burlap. You have to let the soil soak up water. It comes as a little dried disc.

So this was then...

This is now. These things really grow fast. Maybe we will get a few blooms by Christmas!

Are you ready for Christmas? We still have a few gifts to get. Most of our shopping has been done thank goodness. It has come faster this year.

hypertufa?

You are probably wondering what hypertufa is. When Charles asked me to take this class with him, I wondered what it was too. Yesterday, we took a 4 hour class at the University of Georgia Experiment Gardens in Griffin. It turns out, hypertufa is a certain mixture of materials used to make planters or other concrete type structures. Historically, Europeans have used lava rock to make planters, etc. This was before the days of concrete. This class showed us the way to mimic this look. We had a great time!

These 3 pictures are examples of hypertufa planters.
The class was set up behind the new building at the Experiment Gardens. I have posted pictures before of this great place.

We used 3 ingredients. Peat moss was one.

Perlite:: to make the finished product lighter than concrete

Concrete:: there is a small amount

Each set of partners had a work table with all the needed supplies.
We were able to make 2 planters. The boxes were used for the molds.

To prepare, we covered the boxes in plastic bags. Then, started to mix the dry ingredients in the black tubs.

So far so good! This process takes awhile. Have to get all of the lumps and little sticks out.

They did tell us to bring gloves. This picture below is how it looks once the water is added.

Our mold is supported and ready to go. We packed a layer of the mixture on the bottom of the large box, then used the smaller box to help create the sides.

We will not have a finished product to show for a couple of days. Once we remove the mold, we have to let it cure for weeks before planting. This was a fun process that I highly recommend. UGA is now offering this class 2x a year. The next one will be in the spring. I will let you know when I hear about it. We actually had some ladies that drove all the way from north Atlanta. Go Griffin!