Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Terrariums

So maybe I'm a little late on the terrarium train, but I've caught the fever. I had the pleasure this weekend of happening upon a little place in the city called Workshop. They offer daily classes for anything you can dream of, from screen printing to bike maintenance. I was lucky enough to partake in glass jar terrarium workshop and I am hooked!
Now for those of you who, like me, find yourself unaware of what exactly a terrarium is, it's a transparent globe or container in which plants (that generally prefer high humidity) are grown. Basically, you can have your own mini jungle. What I found to be most exciting is that you can grow a terrarium in almost any kind of glass enclosure, be it a mason jar, coffee pot or my favorite, a bell jar.
I selected a beautiful carafe from our store to begin with:
From there you have to put several layers before you begin to plant, all of the layers combined should take up about one third of your container.
  1. A bottom layer of rocks, colorful glass, porcelain; something to provide some sort of drainage for your plants.
  2. You put a thin layer of activated charcoal
  3. And finally a thicker layer of soil.
From there you can get as creative as you'd like, put some colorful moss, add some pebbles and plant terrarium friendly plants using either chopsticks or a pencil if, like mine, your container isn't big enough to use your hands. Arrange it, then rearrange it until you're happy with your own little Ferngully. Seeing as this was a beginner class, we used succulents because they are the most easily spawned and you can practically break off any size piece of a succulent and it will sprout roots and grow freely with little encouragement. From there you water about once every 2-3 weeks and ta-da you have your very own mini ecosystem.
Though the options for terrarium containers are endless, here at Bae we have some recycled glass bottles that would give a vintage vibe to your terrarium as well as striking glass domes in various sizes. So come in today to gab about your new favorite hobby and see what sorts of creative terrarium containers you can find!


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