Thursday, May 4, 2017

My Backyard DIY Summer Projects: Terrariums and Gardening

This is a smaller post while I put together my how-to for my solar-powered lights. Recently, I decided I needed another feel-good project, and lately, something that makes me feel super good is building things and working in my garden and on my patio. So, I decided to build a terrarium for inside near our kitchen sink and make a little succulent bowl for outside on the patio. I also planted some flowers, because I love flowers and so do bees!

I started with the succulent bowl first.


Oh, and my super rad neighbor (who I ran into at the garden store only about a half hour before all of this!) gave me, as she said, "The best margarita you'll ever try," and I'll be honest, it certainly was! I will have to try and find a recipe to share with her next time around. :)

Anyway, you can see my supplies! I chose a bunch of baby succulents, a nice glass bowl, some potting soil, some moss, and (not pictured above, but it is below) some river pebbles.


The first thing I did was fight the pebble packaging. Not even joking. Like, seriously! Who's going to steal river pebbles? It took me almost half of my margarita and some serious determination to pry the lid off of that thing! Ugh!

But once I managed (HA! I am stronger than that blasted tape after all!), I poured about half of the river pebbles into the bowl.


I have no idea why. I guess this helps drain the excess water from the soil or something? No clue. Everyone on Pinterest was doing it, so I wanted to be part of the fad and jumped in (I also did this for my large standing light fixture, but I'll discuss that more in my next post). I smoothed the rocks out because why not, and then it was time for the soil!


I love soil. Like, probably an unhealthy amount. I almost never use gardening gloves (unless I'm picking prickly weeds or working with mulch, because splinters are gross). Anyway, I dumped some potting soil on top of the rocks and sort of eyeballed it. Then, it was time for the plants!


I played around with the succulents' positions for a while, trying to decide what I liked best. This was supposed to be their final form, but then I realized I couldn't get the aloe apart, so I had to put it in the center. Which is fine; it turned out looking pretty!



Last came the decorations. I bought some fairy garden stuff (from the sale bin!). The zebra plant had to be moved to make enough room, but overall, I was pretty happy with the end result.


Can you find the hedgehog in the first shot? ;) I ended up moving him later, but still love how cute he is!

And here the final product is, sitting out by one of my lamps!



Next on my list was the terrarium.


I also filled it with rocks. Honestly, at this point, I think it's just the fashionable thing to do.


Next was the soil! My favorite!


Woah, that's not soil. Okay, but it still shows you how many river pebbles I added and the little wishing well I planned to put inside.


Ah, better! Then, somehow, I managed to squeeze a zebra plant in.


The zebra plant was almost touching the top, which meant it wouldn't have any room to grow. So I took another swig of the best margarita ever, pulled the zebra plant out, and emptied half of the rocks and dirt into my soil bag. Bummer. Once I adjusted the levels, I put the zebra plant back in.


MUCH better. Now the plant has some wiggle room to get a little bigger.


I then stuffed the moss in and fit the wishing well inside. But, there was a problem. I still had this last little cute succulent left, and I had no place to put her! After some contemplation of the deepest kind, I decided the plant deserved to be in the terrarium, not the wishing well.


And boy does she look ADORBS there! Yup, I made the right choice, no doubt about it!

That's not to say the wishing well didn't find a place. It did, right among some freshly planted daisies and moss! Perfect fit!