The Perfect Garden

I've loved the idea of terrariums for a while now and before Jacqui and I started Deconstructing Martha, they would have just been something I admired from afar.  Martha  featured several in this month's issue, so I was pretty excited to give them a shot.  What's a terrarium, you ask?  A terrarium is a collection of small plants growing in a transparent container.  They can actually be used to illustrate how an ecosystem works.  The whole idea is pretty cool and would be a great project to do with a child.  Unfortunately for me, since the terrarium neither involved a Matchbox car, nor a HotWheels car, this was something I was going to be doing on my own.

I bought cactus soil and some succulents from Lowes and the glass hurricane's from Homegoods.  I was really overwhelmed by the choices of glass and finally, after much deliberation, I decided on larger ones to contain several little plants together. You can also get an assortment of succulent cuttings on Etsy and they tend to be a little more interesting than those available at Lowes.

Not bad for a first try.

I think individual, tiny terrariums would be pretty wedding favors and the larger ones would make a great housewarming, birthday, or 'just-because' pressie.  One of these little guys will be coming up to NY with me as part of my mother's birthday present.  Happy Birthday, Mom! :)

For just a pittance and a little effort, you can easily have a self-contained and very easy to maintain miniature garden.  I ask, what's not to love about this project?

Ali