Tufa Planting

This may not be the eye-candy that Todd posts but I thought it was pretty cool. I went to a tufa workshop a couple of weeks ago.
It was run by Harvey Wrightman (of Wrightman's Alpines, Ontario Canada). We brought cordless drills and he supplied the
little cuttings, a nice peice of tufa and sifted tufa sand to fill in the planting whole. He also brought some absolutely gorgeous tufa-filled
troughs and gave us a slide show of tufa sources, plantings and some really choice alpines.

I'll have to post pictures of the planted tufa a few years from now (assuming things grow as well as Harvey's do!)

Anyway - tufa is a special form of rock that is formed only in few places in N. America. Its highly porous and is apparently
the perfect medium for many alpines. Here's the picture of my new tufa planted out with all sorts of goodies from Wrightmans.

Tam

Here's another shot of the tufa.
Tam

That's really neat. I attended a tufa workshop in Calgary many years ago. Believe it or not, at the top of this pic is my tufa...completely grown over in moss with a few saxifrages. I now have the moss removed and it looks much better but its hard to keep the moss off. I also have a few alpines growing in pumice (seen in the lower part of the pic).

So pretty! I sure hope the saxes like their home. I just love 'em.
Tam

Tammy, the progress of your little tufa "garden" is going to be so much fun to watch. You have so many different things planted in there.

Todd, your picture is eye candy.

I read an article in the Alpine Garden Society journal about alpine gardeners who specialise in tiny alpines that are suited to this medium. Wonderful!