Tuesday, March 8, 2011

DIY terrarium: mission complete.

I'll spare you the details but after three weeks with a nasty bug and one week of severe writer's block, I am finally back at it. With this being the first time I've ever had a three week ailment, I didn't realize just how gray you see everything once you've finally come to. Then I remembered... when in doubt, DIY.

So, to help bring some life back into my place, I decided to try out the terrarium idea (as seen here). To complete this, you need the following:

  • pea gravel
  • Horticultural charcoal
  • moss
  • top soil
  • some sort of succulent plant
One big learning is that horticultural charcoal is very hard to come by - especially in the winter. Luckily after tons of running and calling around, an absolutely adorable greenhouse called H.J. Benken ended up having it (giant props to the boyf for heading up there earlier to figure this all out for me). I also got my pea gravel there and caught myself searching for more things to buy. Fortunately, I was reminded of my brown thumb and opted to just go with what I needed.

I started with a thick layer of pea gravel for drainage then added an equally thick layer of horticultural charcoal to help soak up excess moisture. From there I layered moss, top soil and more pea gravel solely for visual purposes. I topped it off with my favorite succulent, some more moss and a couple of pretty white stones for some added texture and contrast. Did a little watering and the voila - a terrarium. The best part about it? I felt like I was gardening without the added stress of knowing I had to constantly water it and praying for it to stay alive.

Fearful of trying to hang, I opted for placement on a side table in my living room that gave it just the right amount of visual interest and helped balance out the rest of the greenery in the space. Another idea if I had more space, would be to create 3-5 terrariums in various sized and shaped glass holders to place in the middle of a dining room table. Also a great idea to arrange on a floating shelf to help fill an empty wall. 


above two: my terrarium




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