Thought I'd share photo of my newest hypertufa creation for those who might want to give it a try. He's just out of the form and now soaking in his water bath:



top view:



I used aluminum foil, but don't like the placement of his nose. Double sided carpet tape might be good to stick the facial pieces inside the form in their place.

I hope to plant his eyes with small or miniature green hens -n- chicks, and his nose with ones that have a pink shade to them, and his mouth with ones that have red. Larger hens -n- chicks, plus maybe some baby tears or something like that for his hair. (Forgot about "ears".) Hope to get some more made and make one with a mohawk using a miniature Iris. Who knows what the finished product will look like. He may need groomed ocassionally.

Thanks for sharing pics and details of your interesting project with us! What's the size of head planter?
Looking forward to the planting results of your planter.

AWWWW!!! That is great Nothing I like more than head pots. Looking forward to seeing what you do with your pot.

Bev, the container is about 6" tall or a little more. I used a standard gallon size nursery pot, the ones here they call squat pots because they are the shorter ones, but still a standard gallon. I wanted the container to be smaller at the top than bottom, and knew there was no way I could get a container like that out of the form, so I cut the container on two opposing sides and taped it up with duct tape, making it smaller at the top. That way it was easy to remove my container from the form just by removing the tape.

You used your head to make your head...

What a great and creative container you made HH.
Do you still have the pot pieces so we can have a visual of the way you cut it?
I really love what you did.

I think his nose is great
.He has real character.No one has a perfectly centered and balanced face anyway.

I agree with Jo Ann, it does give it more whimsy and character.

Thanks ladies. I was looking through my small collection of semps (which I just purchased last fall), and some of the ones I wanted to use, I'm not sure if I'm going to have enough babies to fill in. Lynn, the one in your photo would be great for his mouth, but I'm guessing its a fairly large semp (it has a beautiful red color).

I may have to plant in two stages. Lay the container on it's side to get the facial planted and rooted, and then later plant the top which would be his head.

In making a similar container, I tried to imagine a clown face. Couldn't think of much detail with the exception of making the nose just an oval or round, and some clowns have frowns over smiles.

What do you consider to be a large semp HH?
I have a red one that quite large.


I would think something much smaller would work.
I can't remember the name of that one right off. But there are many that would work well for the mouth. Let me see if I can give you a list of some that would be red most of the year, or at least have red tips year round.

Bev, I missed your post before ... cute! -- Lynne, I wasn't much into semps until last year with hypertufa and looking (lurking) at some of the planters here. When I consider large, I guess 5" or over. It seemed when I was searching online to buy, if I remember correctly, that's the way they were catagorized. So yes, for my fill ins (eyes, mouth, nose), I'm probably wanting the ones 1-1/2" or under. I have the varieties that I want to use (not named, since they came as a collection), just I don't think they've produced enough babies from receiving last year in September to now. Most only have 4 to 6 babies. I wintered them over in pots (probably harder on them with a September planting), to insure they would winter in the hypertufa pots. I think I lost three (3) of the collection, all being the webby ones. In a week or so, I'll probably go ahead and at least put some in the planter in hopeful increase next year to fill in.

How about these?

Eyes


Nose


Mouth

Great pix Lynn.The first one is just hysterical.

I thought that would make great eyeballs.

And when it puts out babies, they would become tears, maybe

Wow, I think I would have to agree with you all. Do you sell them, Lynne? I know when I was lurking at the semps forum last year, someone was selling through Cubits. But at the time it seemed like they had less variety than the suppliers that were listed at the semps forum. 'Pacific Devil's Food' is extremely red and nice. I like them all!! Are the two reds smaller ones? Sometimes photos can be deceptive.

And WOW, Lynne, your semp bed is lovely! I just put in a new bed this evening with concrete blocks for Martagons. My plan was to plant in the holes like you have done with trailing sedums and semps.

And I apologize, for some silly reason I keep putting an "e" on the end of your name. Sorry...

Well, I now definitely don't recommend this project to anyone ... it's a hassle and difficult. I found that based on the size of his face, I could only use miniature semps. I think photos can be very deceptive. Anything over an inch was just too large caused his facial features to overlap each other and not be distinguishable. So in the corners of his eyes and the vertical of his nose I used one that matures to no more than 1/4", and it kind of piles up upon itself, so hopefully that will give him some height on his nose. The ones for nostrils seemed matured in my pots at almost an inch, a little less, and I also used those in three places in his mouth. Two of the ones in his mouth matured in pots at just a little over an inch.

Planting was difficult. I was forced to use potting soil, otherwise it all fell out from the front or back of his head because I had to lay him on his head (as in the photo) to plant. Once the face is rooted, I may try to take out some of the potting soil and mix in gritty sand.

But I did figure out one thing. I had tried making some toad houses. That was the first time I had covered mix on the outside of the form. I couldn't judge how thick the mix was (should have used a stick or something to check, but didn't), and most of the mix was only about one-half inch instead of an inch. Every one of those cracked when I removed the form. To test and try to save one, I added more mix on top of the first layer. It now seems very strong, and doesn't appear that it will crack now or fall apart.

So that brought me to thinking that it is possible that one could use this method of forming the pot with facial holes in step one of the hypertufa making, and then upon removing it from the form, one could add protruding mouth, eyes and nose with hypertufu mix, using the holes made, if you get the idea. But I'm just not an artist like that. I'd probably have to find someone who could do it for me. Never know, may be a future project.