My attempt at plantkeeping: Homemade Terrarium

Despite the fact that Etsy has beaten the terrarium trend to it’s last breath, I wanted to make my own attempt.  Some weeks ago when Dino and I were perusing the giant Stormville Tag Sale, I had my eye on this deliciously decaying terrarium–it was empty of plants at the time.  Unfortunately the person selling it had stepped away from her booth so there was no one there to haggle the price with.  I didn’t want to pay the $50 on the sticker.  So we left without it, and I mentioned it to my mom (the master haggler!) to see if she could get the woman down to around $35 if she happened to pass through that booth.  She told me she had no luck.  But weeks later at my birthday party she surprised me with it!

I had my friend Melissa who is a very talented gardener and landscape designer help me turn it from an empty glass box into a little magical eco-system!  I’m not much of a green thumb, but I’m trying very hard to take good care of this.  By the way, taking good care of a terrarium pretty much means leaving it alone.

First we lined the bottom with tin foil to keep the majority of moisture off the metal base.  Than a layer of pea-gravel (which was in a fresh bag) was rinsed and placed in the bottom. *It’s important that all components of your terrarium are fresh and sterile so use new bags of soil, moss, charcoal and gravel.

On top of the gravel, we added a half inch layer of charcoal, which helps to drain the moisture.  Too much moisture will be harmful to your terrarium–you do not want standing water anywhere.

Over the charcoal, add a layer of spongy, spagnum moss.  I think this has something to do with moisture too.  Finally, add the soil.  Our soil was mixed with peat moss, and we added a small amount of water to dampen it, just so.  The soil layer is about 3 inches thick or so.

We added four plants–an indestructible philodendron, a miniature orchid, an arrowroot plant and an unidentifiable cactus-y/aloe-y looking thing.  Oh, and I also added my stone hedgehog that used to live in my china cabinet, but now has a new woodland home.  I brought him home from Germany back when I was 16 years old.

So basically that was it.  In ideal conditions, the plants will make their own water which will condense on the glass and then “rain down” on them to hydrate them.  Melissa adamantly instructed me to keep water out of the “crotch” of the orchid (who really likes a damp crotch?) and to not open the lid!  If everything is operating correctly, I shouldn’t have to add water to the terrarium but every 4 months or so.  So far, the droplets are forming and the orchid’s crotch is nice and dry.  It’s been about a week.

Though terrariums can be tricky to maintain, if you build it properly from the beginning you should have a lovely little enclosed eco-system to admire for a long time!

7 Responses to “My attempt at plantkeeping: Homemade Terrarium”