Terrariums are glass framed miniature gardens that serve as beautiful green ornaments for your home or as unique original gifts for your loved ones.
If you are interested, you can build your own terrarium in less than an hour.
Let’s see how!
Materials
You need:
1. Glass containers with or without lid;
2. Granular sand or gravel;
3. Beach stones;
4. Shards of polished glass;
5. Coal pieces;
6. Sterile soil for plants;
7. Moss (optional);
8. Decorative items (optional).
You can use any glass container as long as the mouth is wide enough to be more easily for you to plant. However ideally, the plants should not touch the edges of the glass container, so if the container base is wider, you’ll be able to plant more plants. In addition, you have to choose between several species of plants, but you can also opt for decor items such as shells, figurines and other ornaments.
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Plants
When choosing plants for terrarium, make sure they are small enough not to touch the edges of the glass once planted. Also, buy plants that support a wet environment. So you will have to exclude most succulent plants that store water in their fleshy leaves and all varieties of cactus.
However, if you really like succulent plants you should definitely opt for a terrarium without a lid with a wider mouth, and the soil should contain granular sand.
In general, look for plants that love a medium or low luminosity and try to vary the color, texture and size of leaves for a surprising effect.
Here are some plants suitable for terrarium: Croton, Dracaena, Small Ferns, Lucky Bamboo, etc.
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Drainage
Given that the terrarium will not benefit from drainage holes, you will need to create a place to drain it, without touching the plant roots.
Moss and / or sand layers can help in this sense, plus they can have a special aesthetic role. In addition you can use a layer of stones that sit above a layer of charcoal that will help drainage and will capture odors. The next step is to add moss to prevent the top layer of soil to mix with stones and coal.
Terrarium Design
If your terrarium design has a front and a back, you need to put higher plants in the back or in the middle.
Also, you can place the layer of soil so as to form a curved line for an interesting effect.
Maintenance and Watering
Water terrarium plants by spraying.
Likewise you can clean the impurities from the glass using a piece of paper at the end to wipe the inside of your terrarium.
NOTE: Never use glass cleaner because it is dangerous to plants.
The great thing about terrariums is that it involves very little time, effort and money, but will look in the end, like botanical jewels and more than that they are fit for any home style.
