Stone Troughs

Stone troughs by night!

Rachel_Adams — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:30:39 +0000

With this strange weather, we were thinking that it would be great to show customers some of our troughs lit up at night. We shall be featuring a section of “troughs by night’ so people can enjoy our beautiful stone troughs in the dark, as well as during the day.

Planting ideas for stone troughs

Rachel_Adams — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:41:20 +0000

These are a few pictures of troughs that we have had that have been planted up by our customers. We are delighted that we have sold stone troughs through the UK and internationally, we will be contacting some of our customers to get some more trough images for our blog over the summer. We have exported troughs to America, Australia and throughout Europe, so will be looking forward to the fantastic new planting ideas from all over the world!

Please browse our selection of stone troughs. You can view detailed pictures of the troughs by clicking on the thumbnail images.

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Stone Troughs are ideal for Alpines

Rachel_Adams — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:16:55 +0000

Stone troughs are ideal for planting your precious alpines in. We will be visiting the Chelsea Flower Show to look at more planting ideas for our stone troughs, so please keep a look out for our new posts.

The troughs in this gallery have been planted with alpines.

You can obtain information on the cultivation and care of alpines at www.alpinegardensociety.net

You can view detailed pictures of the troughs by clicking on the thumbnail images.

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Tips on drainage in stone troughs

Webmaster — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:24:18 +0000

Most troughs already have a drain hole to enable the troughs to be emptied and cleaned , when they were originally used on farms as water troughs. However some don’t, but troughs can easily be drilled. (It is best to drill them at either end, towards the bottom of the side walls, so that the holes don’t get filled up with soil). It is advisable to place a good amount of “crock” in the bottom of troughs to act as drainage for plants. (A good 3”-4” of broken up terracotta or rubble is ideal. Not limestone, as some plants don’t like lime). We use multipurpose compost for planting mixed with good sandy soil. If you are using just compost, it is worth mixing 1 part sharp sand with 2 parts compost. We also dress the mix with a few handfuls of general fertilizer. )

Stone Trough History Part 1

Webmaster — Mon, 24 May 2010 19:12:17 +0000

Most troughs were built for watering stock and are found both within and along the edges of fields. They can also be found in the enclosures attached to field barns where they held water for over-wintering cattle. Many troughs are set into field walls so that they can serve stock in two fields; these often have a sandstone divider or bars across the middle, as with the trough pictured.
Troughs are also found alongside roads and tracks, often fed by a natural stream or spring, and sometimes by a piped or culverted supply. Roadside troughs will also have served moving stock but were primarily intended for horses.
Some troughs originally associated with other agricultural and industrial uses still survive in the Dales. Very large troughs were sometimes used in the process of retting hemp and flax (retting is literally rotting of the plant stems in order to help separate the fibres from the other parts of the stem).
The seals on many Helwith Slate troughs seem to have failed and there are large numbers of disused or dismantled slate troughs. Sometimes a divider or bars will be present in a wall, sometimes the stone trough will have been replaced by a galvanised one.