I'm new to this too. I tried a few different recipes, colours and molds before making a large trough. The large one is till curing, but here are the others I made. All this plus a trough twice the size of these from one bag of cement. The two bigger ones in the picture were made outside a cardboard box covered in plastic. That worked well, but might have worked better if I'd filled the box with sand since the sides tended to push in. The other three were built outside bricks coated in plastic. They proved very difficult to release and one of them cracked in half (the one at the front, mortared back together). The bricks have no give and so any slight irregularity binds tight. I made the large trough inside a wooden former, again coated in plastic. Forming inside gives a slightly different look to forming outside and you might want to roughen the exterior after you release. I have tried these recipes: Cement:Peat:Sand:Vermiculite 1:1:1:1 This is my favourite recipe. It is strong, light enough for my needs, and I like the appearance. The trough on the right. Cement:Peat:Sand:Perlite 1:1:1:1 Not so good. A little lighter but probably not as strong. The appearance is too smooth for my taste. The trough on the left, stained. Cement:Sand:Vermiculite 1:2:3 This really is a lightweight concrete, not hypertufa. The proportions should be OK, but it is either curing very slowly or is very weak. Very pale colour, like regular concrete, might be good with a stain or dye. The small trough at the back with a little ferrous sulphate in the mix to give a slight pink blush. All these recipes include sand because I want enough strength to survive the wet and freeze/thaw conditions here. The sand adds quite a bit to weight. You might choose to use a mesh inserr of glass fibres instead to get flex strength and resistance to cracking with less weight.

AWESOME!! Thanks for sharing. This year, I created a cut flower arrangement - well this is the first year I had anything besides roses to bring inside - and I was thinking - WOW - should do this often!! Besides all the little bugs that crawled out onto my dining room table, I loved it - and I love yours!!

I'm a newbie too T-bird, and I know how you feel. It seems all a bit odd. There's so much time to wait from now until germ time. But from others here, they say its a success, and what a space saver, and I can earn a buck while I'm at it, so I'm in. I've really run out of garden space, since i only rent, but what I do is dig up something I've had for awhile and give it away or well it. I am trying to start a little business but for the most part I just give it away, especially to a certain fellow who donates it to his church. Just have faith T-bird and bank on the experience of these knowledgable gardeners. Find someone who will adopt you, then you'll be off and running. I believe there is a site for getting adopted. Can someone help me out here? I'll see if I can find a link. Are you interested in sowing other seeds? If you ask people will send you seeds, they love to help out us newbies. Trudi also gives out free seeds at Wintersown.org. If you go there you take a little fun quiz and at the end of it you get a paper verifying you went through the process, and in so doing you learn about WSing. Trudi is our greatest help, I guess she got this all started. her site is amazing, Check it out. Micki

Agree it may be to small for a " spritzing" even at one time a month but there's no need to be in "doubt" to long either. Check by touching the base of the caudex at soil on your schedule and if it's soft in any way HOLD off on watering and pull it out for a very possible funeral I left slightly off focus pics to help explain it better APX time three weeks ago "spriting" is scheduled for Dec 1. for you I'll say it's Nov 1 Leaves are going dormant & my last "spritz" was recieved Caudex coloring and firmness is a big tip and if it looks like the one below you shouldn't water a younger adenium Squeeze a thumb knuckle and if your caudex is that firm then a "spritz might be in order, but don't spritz by caudex coloring as seen below ( slightly off focus ) As seen here the caudex is firm but the coloring of the base at soil is to light for watering next week (or Dec 1) so I WILL skip " spritzing" until X mass when I'll check again even then I will probably have doubts on spritzing it until New Years or shortly after. DRs like it dry in all reality the one you see in pic can go a bit longer than New Years As you may know if the caudex gets soft at all on a smaller younger DR it's already dead. Repeating the best idea as......... It's always better to NOT WATER than it is to water, but we're also on two different sides of the world I also I tend to NOT WATER or "spritz" if signs of flowering is noticed. You have a LOL funny idea describing DR watering as "spritzing" so funny to the point that I know what you mean