Hypertufa Was Hyper Tough

Yesterday I mentioned my brother and I had seven projects in the works at one time.  This is a project we thought would go fairly quickly and smoothly.  We thought we could just whip this one out while we were waiting for glue to dry.  Well boy were we wrong. 

 I had found a recipe for hypertufa planters here:  http://www.bhg.com/gardening/container/plans-ideas/make-a-hypertufa-trough/#page=  

 I had purchased all the ingredients (except the reinforced concrete fibers) and they had been sitting in my garage for a month.  Since the way I read it, the reinforced concrete fibers were just for added strength, I decided it wasn't worth it to get cleaned up to go pick up some.  We found some containers.  Two were restaurant carryout containers, one was a piece of Tupperware and the others were just some bowls.  We mixed everything trying to get the right consistency.  Not to dry, not to wet.  Then we set to molding.  We had some leftover so I decided to mold some spheres by hand.  We set them out in the sun to dry. 

 Everything seemed to have gone smoothly..........until after 48 hours we decided to remove the containers.  Every one of them crumbled in our hands.  What did we do wrong???  The reinforced concrete fibers???  The heat and humidity???  Did they dry too fast???  My brother who has some experience brick laying tended to think it was the consistency and the humidity. 

 So, we decided to crumble everything back to a fine powder, add more concrete and more water.  We repeated the whole process with better success the second time.  Here are the results!

This is the only picture I took during the process.  Neither one of us wanted to stop and wash our hands to handle the camera.

In the middle is a double bowl planter my brother created.  I want to get some succulents to plant in them.

  It turned out the best because the base and walls were so thick.

A couple of the bowls with a bird's nest in one.

 

This one turned out really pretty but the fluted edges chip easily.

I would love to hear from anyone about their experience with hypertufa.  Does anyone have a better recipe, tips or tricks to share?  This is definitely something I want to try again!