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Updated 17 Feb, 2017 12:51am

Go green with a terrarium!

We have been making some paper stuff lately, so I thought why not create something different for our friends who love plants and gardening. So we will make a terrarium — an indoor plant decoration in a sealable or open glass container with plants and soil inside them.

So for making the terrarium, the stuff we need is easily available, except for moss, maybe. Moss is a flowerless plant that grows generally on marshy/damp areas in parks or lawns. If you see it, just scrape a patch and put over the place you want it to grow. It will re-grow. Moss serves as the green bed without the need of grass in terrariums.

If you can’t get it, no need to worry as our terrarium will still have life in it with plants.

Things you need:

  1. A glass container, preferably deep and with a wide mouth (you can also use a plastic one).

  2. Succulent plant (a thick plant, resistant to harsh conditions with the need of little or even no water for a long time). You can also use cactus of any kind.

  3. Different-sized lime stones and pebbles

  4. Potting soil

  5. Moss

Directions:

  1. Take a clean glass or plastic container, if you can get a deeper one it will look gorgeous. Fill about an inch of the base with pebbles or lime stones, as in picture 7. If using a deep container, you should fill stones up to the height of at least two inches. The stones will serve the purpose of drainage so when you water your terrarium, the excess water will not get stagnant and will go straight to the stones.

  2. Now fill the container again with about one or two inches of soil, picture 8.

  3. Now make a bed of moss on soil by setting it over the soil and pressing it gently all over the surface. Picture 9.

  4. Dig in a hole with a stick to plant your succulent.

  5. You can buy or pluck a number of short stems from the succulents and insert and press it gently as you would plant something in a flowerpot. Picture 10.

Your little green world is ready to showcase.

Note:

  1. For terrariums usually succulent plants are used as they need less maintenance and they re-grow easily. You can use two or more plants.

  2. Terrariums need less water. So water them using a spray bottle, twice a week. And also expose them to sunlight whenever possible, but don’t put them in direct sunlight for long.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 4th, 2017

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