How to Mix Hypertufa for Planters

Put on rubber gloves, protective goggles, and a mask that covers your nose and mouth. Some of the dry ingredients are harmful if they touch your skin or eyes or if you breathe them.

Scoop one bucket each of Portland cement, peat moss, perlite, and all-purpose sand into a wheelbarrow. The size of the bucket to use depends on how big of a planter you are going to make. For a very large planter, use two or more buckets of each ingredient. Just keep the ratios of ingredients equal.

Mix all the dry ingredients with a shovel. If you need to, break up the peat moss with your hands.

Pour in about 1/2 bucket of water. Mix it with a shovel to begin incorporating the water, then switch to using your gloved hands. Press the mix together, stirring the water into it with your hands. When the hypertufa is thoroughly mixed, about the consistency of cookie dough and wet enough to stick together in a ball, let it sit for 10 minutes. Add more water if needed during the process, but do not use so much water that the mix becomes sludgy or soupy.

Mix the hypertufa again with your hands, and add a little more water if it does not hold together. When you make a firm ball of hypertufa and squeeze it in your hands, you should get, at most, a drop or two of water out of it.