Tough Enough Trough

Our scanner had been acting really weird, so we weren’t surprised when it gave a final grinding sound on Friday. My husband installed a new one Friday night. Since a new toy must be played with, I thought it would be fun to scan some old garden photos from our albums for this blog. Once Susan at Takoma Gardener posted about her 4-year old hypertufa, it was clear which photo belonged here.

Here's how our hypertufa trough looked in July of 1996. This trough is over 10 years old, originally made for our Chicago-area front garden and used for annuals that needed good drainage, like Portulaca. It’s been through 4 Illinois winters with sub-zero temperatures, spent another 5 years on a south-facing Texas deck with temperatures ranging from 116º down to 12º, and now rests on a sunny area of decomposed granite. Internal layers of chicken wire gave it enough strength to survive moving vans and freeze & thaw cycles.

Here is our Austin herb garden, a few steps from the kitchen. The old trough at the left now holds a prostate Rosemary and some thyme. To its right, a trough built in 2005 holds Mexican Mint Marigold, Tagetes lucida, and a lime-scented Thyme. Behind them at far left is a taller pot, made about 1998, containing an upright Rosemary that was mentioned in one of my old garden diaries.

When I bought this plant in Illinois, the date was Sept 25, 1991, it was a 3-inch seedling from the grocery store, and I paid all of 58 cents. Rosemary is hardy in Texas, but in Illinois this herb spent 8 winters on a south-facing windowsill, stems pressed against the glass to keep it cool without actually letting it freeze.
Out of camera range, another large trough holds cooking sage & a scented geranium, and we have a few tabletop-size hypertufa troughs, too. One of the small ones dates from 1996; the others were made recently. I like to use the small ones for different kinds of sedum.