Terrariums- How to

Making terrariums is a fun little project that helps you bring a little bit of green into places you normally wouldn't see any. They allow you to bring nature indoors into your home or office. Terrariums are neat little ecosystems, that can be portable. I have made a handfull of terrariums in the past. See my previous posts Terrariums, Another one, and my tumblr for pictures. They're relatively simple to make. The hardest part is probably gathering up all the materials.

Here's what you need:

• A glass container with or without a lid (I have used vases, anchor hocking heritage hill jars, and candy containers, but I have seen them in those clear glass flour or pasta containers with the metal snap and fish tanks).
• The lid will help keep moisture in and literally create a mini ecosystem, you also will not have to water your terrarium as much.
• Gravel (another option is marbles or glass rocks)
• Activated Charcoal
• Potting Soil
• Plants

Some optional items are:

• Moss
• Decorations 

When picking out your plants keep in mind 4 things:

1. The size of the container that you got
2. The size the plants will grow to
3. The amount of water the plants need
   - Try to get plants with similar water needs, I like succulents because they don't need a lot of water and if you forget about your terrarium for a long time most of your plants should still be okay
4. The decor you will be adding to your terrarium
   -You don't want to have too big of plants and your tiny decorations get lost in the plants and vice versa, you don't want your decor to overshadow your plants, unless of course you like it like that. 

 Ok on to the actual creation of the terrarium.

1. Place the gravel in at least a 1 inch layer in the base of the container (this will give the water a place to drain to).
2. Layer on top of the gravel a quarter of an inch of activated charcoal ( to help with the water drainage and to keep the soil from seeping into the gravel layer).
3. At this point I like to take my plants out of the containers they came in and place them where I want them to go in order to make sure that they will fit and I like the way that they look.
4. Fill the soil in between your plants on top of the charcoal (the amount will vary based on the type of plants you pick and the size of the container, try not to disturb the charcoal and gravel layers).
5. Water your plants with just a little bit of water to see where the soil sinks down and fill in with more soil.

 You are basically done with your terrarium

• Add moss around the base of your plants to give it a more wild look or instead of moss you can use some glass stones
• Add any decorations you like (I have made some tiny mushrooms to hide in the moss before, it gives it a nice little forest look).

Enjoy!