This blog is about random things in my life, I like to talk and I like to share my opinion (whether asked for or not) and this seems like the best place for those quirky random fleeting thoughts!
Ok, back in February I was stoked that I had set out to make terrariums. And to be honest they didn't turn out exactly how I expected but still made for a nice decoration in the living room. But inevitably the process of creating the terrariums was a lot more fun than maintaining them. Between overwatering (or possibly under watering), not enough sunlight, and a general lack of knowledge when it comes to moss, the terrariums weren't looking great month or so down the road.
It was time for a spruce up - especially considering we have people viewing our apartment and it was far from appealing. Some of the plants seemed to fair better than others, this meant I needed smaller sturdier succulents. Back to the garden shop we went, and together we picked out 5 new plants. Not all were intended for the terrariums, I planned to shift some of the plants and use a couple other pots lying around. (Pots left over from the basil I managed to kill by forgetting it outside one night in the cold - maybe I don't have such a green thumb after all.)
The moss died every time, so I just yanked it out. Some of the other plants had rotted and were removed a while ago. Then surprisingly a couple of the plants had actually grown and started to spread, like the Torch plant. The firsts terrariums I built were over crowded, this time I went for less is more, obviously hoping round two goes better, fingers crossed. Oh yeah, there was also the Spider plant that was on the brink of death, which I repotted and put outside in a last ditch effort. And I decided to throw in a cactus this time, getting it home and planting it proved to be a painful experience despite how small it is, ha-ha!
Probably should have pulled out a camera other the iPhone, but here are some pics of finished round 2.
And I was hoping you could help me with one thing... any tips on how to clean the soil off the plants once they been potted? Seems every time I ended up tossing soil over part of the plant and it just ends up looking messy! You would think water would do the trick, but then it would be over watered?!
I'll be sure to give you another update in a month or so!
Time for the big reveal... after a lot of work, here are the 5 different terrariums I created!
Since I had never made a terrarium before I had no idea which container would be easiest or look best, so I chose 5 different shapes/sizes.
Some things I learned along the way :
-should have picked smaller plants or bigger vases (some of the plants didn't fit down inside the vases as intended)
-enjoyed working with the fish bowl the most (the shape of the bowl helped to create the idea of an enclosed garden the best)
-the tall medium sized container was runner up (the depth of the container also helped to create the look I was going for)
-consider how deep the plants need to be inserted into the soil compared to the size of the vase (some weren't deep enough and the plants stick out)
-not all succulents are easy to work with (a couple broke quite easily and some just stabbed me every time I put my hand in the vase)
Now it's time to let nature take its course! I'll be sure to give you a follow-up in a couple weeks. For all I know half of the plants are dead by next week, only time will show where my mistakes were. Luckily we learn from mistakes and I'll know what else to take into consideration next round. Once I get better at this, I plan on finally investing the money in the unusually shaped vases that originally attracted me to this project! Or even adding figurines to create some kind little world within the terrariums.
Enjoy the pics! (Took the pics outside where I was working, but since then they have been brought inside and distributed around our apartment.) BTW, I obviously really enjoyed this project from beginning to end!
And if you're curious what I originally saw on Pinterest that sparked my interest, here are a couple links : Better Homes & Gardens (used this as base instructions) Uncovet Blog (love the unusual shapes of theses terrariums)
The weather was clear & sunny, the air not too cold, and my 4yr old was at school... perfect time to start the terrariums!!! I hauled the supplies out to my terrace as needed, and of course this meant starting with the vases and stones. Luckily the 88 lb bag of stones was already in my shed, so I just filled a bucket to tote the stones back & forth.
#1 : 1-2 inches of stones at the bottom of each vase for drainage
#2 : fill the vases 1/4-1/3 full with soil
Wow, it was seeming simple at this point, I figured I'd been done in no time. Next was bringing all of the plants outside. I kept them inside away from the cold as long as I could. With all of the plants in a row, I now had to decide how I wanted to sort them. Some of the original combinations I had in mind weren't going to fit, but no biggie. Plants grouped near their destined containers, I was ready to continue.
#3 : transfer the plants to the vases
I've transferred plants before and I must admit it wasn't always a success. But to be fair that was when I was transferring them from one pot to another, not from the plastic store containers to a pot. It was here I hit my first snag. The level of soil wasn't deep enough for the plants, hmm. Then once I had the plants in the vases I realized there was little space over to add soil & moss between them. And a couple of the plants were harder to work with than I thought, especially the Jelly Bean plant, pieces kept breaking off and going throughout the vase. And the Aloe-ish (I have no idea what it is but it's sharp) was hard to maneuver around thanks to it stabbing me the entire time. But most of the other plants I chose worked great, at least I hope. Now it was time to move on to the moss, but I had run out of time, I needed to run to the school and pick up my 4yr old for lunch. (They often eat lunch at home here in The Netherlands.) I lugged the now filled and obviously more heavy vases back inside, I didn't dare risk leaving them too long out in the cold and I wasn't sure when I would actually get back to my project. A couple hours later, I was ready to add the last thing to the terrariums, and yes, I carried all 5 of them back outside again.
#4 : cover soil with moss
O.k., I've never worked with moss before, I had no idea what I was doing. After tearing a few pieces off and placing them in the vases I noticed the layer of moss below the top layer was actually moister & healthier. I left the top layer on for protection from the cold and then worked with the layers below. Since I have 0 understanding of moss, I've decided to hold on to the crate (yes this means storing in the house for a while) for at least a week. Just in case the moss in the terrariums die I have back-up.
#5 : water the plants, soil, & moss
The terrariums are put together & watered, and now sitting on my dining room table drying and acclimating to their new environment. Most likely tomorrow, I will find them permanent places within our apartment.
Yes, I did it! Do they look like the ones I saw online, ummm, well, my own version, let's just say that. Check back soon for Creative Mission - Part 4, and I'll show you the result as well as give you some extra pointers!
Now that I had my vases for the terrarium project, it was time to collect the rest of the items on my list. I headed out to a large garden shop, my 4 yr old in tow. (She loves plants and shopping so it wasn't going to be an issue.) Since I don't often shop at these types of places it took me a while to find what I was looking for. You also have to keep in mind I found my project in English online, and I'm standing in a Dutch store. Some of the plants I remembered from pictures I had seen, some I had to refer to their scientific names - luckily I had a list. We bought a big variety of plants, ranging from a Coral Cactus to a Spider Plant.
With the plants picked out I now needed to find moss. Hmm, I had walked through the entire store multiple times and hadn't seen it anywhere. We headed to the outside department in the rain, and still couldn't find it. Once we were back inside I stopped to think for a minute, when I looked down there was a crate full of moss! Apparently I had to buy it by the crate, it made sense. The next item was going to be more difficult, activated charcoal (carbon). Maybe in The States this is easy to get a hold of or a reasonable price, but not here. The teenager behind the counter couldn't comprehend what I was looking for and was little help. I of course referred to my phone and Googled suggestions, I quickly realized I was going to have to look in the aquarium department, because that's the only time the Dutch use it (to filter the water.) By this point my daughter was tired of being there and wanted to head off to the next store.
After pricing the stones & pebbles at the garden shop, I knew I could get them cheaper at a DIY store, so off we went. (At the DIY store I bought 2 bags of stones for what I would have paid for 1 bag at the garden shop.) The interesting thing about this DIY store is the stones are located in a self-service drive-thru. Usually I have my husband with me to do the heavy lifting but this time it was up to me. In the rain I loaded the SUV up with 2 huge bags of stones (1 weighed around 55 lbs & the other 1 weighed around 88 lbs, but I managed - would like to see the store security footage though, ha-ha!) Inevitably I had them for the right price, but I was dirty, not my favorite thing. Wanting to price the activated carbon we headed inside the store. They wanted €15 for a box, and it wasn't exactly in the form I needed. Forget it, I was going to have to come up with another idea.
Once back home, I hopped on the computer and looked up alternatives for activated charcoal. Apparently there aren't so many. One tutorial showed how to make it myself, yeah, wasn't really planning on that. So I went back to a variety of DIY terrarium sites and they said the activated charcoal is used in closed terrariums to help with mold and to filter the air. But if you are building an open top terrarium the activated charcoal was not needed. Yes!
So, now that all the items are collected I just need to find time to finally starting making the terrariums. I need an undisturbed block of time and preferably no rain so I can work outside, this is yet to come. Crossing my fingers for this afternoon, but between school and play dates I'm not really sure if that time will come today. Meanwhile, everything is stacked in the corner of my living room, don't want to kill the succulent plants by storing them outside in the cold!
I'm on creative mission, I've decided to make a few terrariums! How did I come up with this, you wonder... well, it started out when I wanted 1-2 new decorations for a shelf in my living room. I checked the stores, didn't really like the prices I was seeing, and to be honest the decorations weren't even really what I wanted. I like unique and sort-of eclectic, so maybe I was just looking in the wrong places. One day while skimming through Pinterest I saw an image of a terrarium collection. I kept thinking about the idea, and realized, hey, I want that in my house, what a great idea for an indoor decoration!
Then the creative mission started, I decided to make my own! Why... it's fun and also because I didn't want to pay the prices for the few I had seen in the stores. (And to be honest they weren't even that nice.) Being that I am frugal, and there is high risk that this project might not work out, I decided to buy the vases from local second-hand shops (aka kringloop).
This turned out to be an interesting experience in itself. I even managed to embarrass myself on a couple of occasions... like following people into a warehouse when it turns out the store wasn't even open that day or at another shop asking if I could take a look around their warehouse and shop when the actual store was around the corner. And even at one second-hand shop I had to turn in my purse, which happened to have my husbands passport in there, oops, luckily nothing was taken out!
The 1st & 3rd second hand shop I went to were a bust. Sure, I saw some incredible finds, but just not what I was looking for. The 2nd store, now they had a decent collection of vases, ones I could actually work with. They're shapes aren't as unusual as I would like, but that's because I'm paying roughly €2 per vase versus €20-€50 I had seen at normal stores. In the end I've ended up with 1 fish bowl and 2 flower vases from the second-hand shop. I wanted something a little bigger, so I still went back to a discount shop and picked up a tall vase (I had been pricing vases all over town, from flower to fish shops. And then seeing the size of the vase was dramatically different than the others, I decided to toss in a glass vase that had been collecting dust in my shed. At this point, I was out a total of less than €10 and have 5 vases that need to be washed and filled!
In a follow up post, I'll be sure to show you some of the great things I stumbled upon at the second-hand shops (things not really relevant to my terrarium project). And besides clear glass vases, I was also looking for thick books with unusual bindings to help stack the smaller vases and either rocks or figurines to go inside the terrariums... I didn't find either but I'll skim the second hand shops again in a couple weeks.
Hope you enjoy my project, there will be more posts to come!!!
