Friday, December 21, 2018

Potted and terrarium-ed

In April I decided that this huge pot in the yard needed something, other than grass and weeds, growing in it. So I spent about $25 or so on some pretty succulents and planted them thinking that they at least had a chance of surviving in this Louisiana heat. 

You know, that kind of money doesn't go far in the world of plants, but I figured they'd grow fast. Like the weeds, maybe? They don't. I added more plants but they didn't fill in the open space much. I was out of money so I had to figure out another option.


My inspiration: from the International Peace Garden
in the Northwest (July 2017)


Not quite enough plants
Eventually I tried to give them a prettier look and added some sea glass I discovered in the studio. (Left over from a project that never took off.) I wrote about using the sea glass in this Sunday Quilt Inspiration post. And summer came and went, we had two days of fall weather, and suddenly the succulents were almost freezing at night and sweltering during the day. Not a good thing.

I had to work fast but there were quite a few plants in the pot and I didn't want to lose them. I also didn't want to deal with several pots of finicky plants. Then I remembered this old terrarium I've had for years. I've tried growing plants in pots in it but well, let's just stick to this story.



 I decided that because there were so many plants I'd just put them into the terrarium without pots. Instead I lay down a heavy sheet of plastic, added enough sand to hold it in place, and started digging up plants. It was cold, really cold outside, so I made a huge mess inside but eventually all of the plants were in the terrarium.



 Some may have been smushed and a couple may be buried under other things. But they all got in there. A bit of water, then I closed the lid. It sat in the way on the counter for a week while I tried to decide whether the enclosure would leak.



Today my concern is that the plants will outgrown the enclosure. What will I do at that point? I don't know, but I'm open to suggestions. 



1 comment:

Karen S said...

This looks like a good solution for now.
Maybe later you can prune and take lots of cuttings to plant elsewhere and that will keep the plants under control.