Making a Succulent Terrarium

Hey, what's up, garden friends? Jeff here. How's everybody doing? Hope you're doing well. I'm great. Hanging out in the, well, you can see it, outside in the grow space. I was about to toss together this little cactus and succulent terrarium and thought maybe I'd go ahead and film it. It's something I've never done before in the terrarium Tuesday videos that I used to do. Never went over a cactus and scratched the cactus. It's just succulents. There's no cactus here. I have this glass terrarium, if that's what we're going to call it. That I picked up from HomeGoods like, I don't know, three or four months ago. I've just been sitting on a shelf waiting to be planted up. And then I have all these beautiful succulents in the back over here that were pretty dry when I started setting up for the video. So I went ahead and put them in this tray, gave them a decent drink and let them sit in that water and soak it up for a good, like 45 minutes to an hour. I think those are ready to go now. They were very dry. I didn't realize they're on one of my higher up shelves where I am more careful with my waterings. That's where a lot of my cactus are that don't really need water during the winter time. So that's, that's what happened there. They're okay now though. They didn't reach the point of desiccation or anything to that extent. They just needed a good drink. The soil felt very light, very light and very dry. So that was kind of the first step here that missed out on putting into the video is making sure the plants are well hydrated. It's always fun filming things in glass. You get all the little spots from all the various lights and then every imperfection shows up. I spent a good amount of time scrubbing this thing and wiping it down and it's still, it's got smudges all over it. I'm just gonna go with it because it's just gonna get dirty as it gets planted up, right? So that doesn't really matter. Got all my materials laid out here on the table, some stuff to make a false bottom, some decorative things, various rocks right here and then I have a couple over here as well that I may or may not use. I don't know. I need to make up my mind on that pretty soon though. They're just very large. I don't really know how I feel about them yet. So the first, oh, I got a new phone and I forgot my ringtone, that startled me. The first thing that I do with any terrarium is create the false bottom. Now with cactus and succulent terrariums, I use quotation marks because it's not an enclosed system. It's not the type of setup where I'm going to be relying on there being evaporation that condenses and then comes back down to water the plants. I don't want that with cactus and succulents. So something that's nice and open, it's usually a good vessel to use when working with plants that don't like things to be stopping wet. Here I have a very dusty container that has some charcoal and pumice mixed together. This is for that false bottom, just a little drainage area to put down here for the cactus and succulents. This being blended together is just happenstance. It's from when I was doing all the terrarium videos a few years ago. This is where I put my leftovers from the pumice and the charcoal. I just put them in the same container. They don't need to be blended together like that at all. Uh-oh, nevermind. See the Mexican pebbles that are in here? These stones that don't... Why did you decide to stop focusing? There we go. So now I remember. I thought that this was my dump bin from when I was done with those terrarium videos that I was filming. This is actually from when I did a terrarium video and the terrarium broke while I was filming. It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. I have to keep that drainage area very shallow in this container because there's not much room to work with here. The opening right there is maybe potentially, I would say like an inch and a half to two inches deep there. So I want to be sure to leave room for some soil. That's important. This is just going to be so that there's a separate area for water to fill in and not be in direct contact with the roots of the plants. So ideally there would be a layer of just the white stuff, the pumice on the bottom with a thin layer of the charcoal on top so that when the water passes through, it gets a little bit of a cleaning from the charcoal. But this is going to do just fine because this isn't a container that's going to really be holding much moisture at all. Right, because you know, succulents don't want much moisture in there. This is the part where sometimes there's debate with people about whether or not to do this with a succulent type terrarium because the idea or the concern I should say is that you're raising that saturation level of the soil up. It's kind of like not putting drainage in the bottom of a container, not putting gravel on the bottom and then having soil right above it because that raises the saturation point of the soil. And that is something to be aware of. However, I would much rather the saturation point of the soil be raised up just slightly and have an area of anaerobic water build up around the roots of the plants because it's starting to get fungus and bacterias and rock can develop. I just prefer to have that little safety net there so that the water can drain down into it. That way the water can drain down into it. That just shot into frame out of nowhere. I feel like that was maybe a bit aggressive. I don't have any cactus potting mix right now. I thought I did, but it turned out it was a bag of vermiculite that was turned to its side. So this is an all-purpose potting mix that I'm adding a good amount of pumice to that's going to aerate it and help it drain. And then let's throw a good amount of sand in there as well. Get that blended together so it looks nice and homogenous. Everything's even. And I should probably pre-moisten this, right? I think it would be a good idea to get some moisture in there because I'm not going to likely be watering this in very heavily. It's going to be difficult to do that, right? Since, you know, there's no drainage in the container. It's going to be an extremely shallow layer of soil. So it'd probably be best to just already have some moisture mixed in there for the plants and it'll make it more like pliable. Less dust and muck to be flying around and getting stuck to the glass. And I think I'm going to have to mount the soil, like slope that in the back in order to have enough planting depth for some of these plants. So having some moisture to this is going to be a good idea. I think it's about right. There's no water coming out of it, but it's slightly holding its shape. I think that'll be good. All right, and then take the tiny shovel, go ahead and start filling this in. Just kidding. That would be ridiculous. It would take forever. I'm going to add in as much as I can. It's probably going to be overfilled, but that's okay. I would rather have to go in and scoop some soil out than have to work more soil in around the plants. This opening is really small. I can barely get my hands inside of this. Much easier to scoop soil out than add more into this. This soil blend, gotta admit, that looks like a great mix to use inside of an actual terrarium. One that has tropical moisture loving plants. Very airy and fibrous. It's going to be fine for the cactus and succulents. So it's all about how you water them in. The main thing is just going to be to make sure that they're never saturated. Just to get a little bit of water in there at a time. I'm going to play around just a little bit here with the angles of the soil to get an idea of how high I can build that up. I want to make sure there's enough room in here to put the plants in and have a top dressing and not have soil or gravel, what have you, any type of top dressing spilling over the front. I think that that's good. So need to start from the back and work my way forward. I have a crassula over here. One of the watch chain types. Ooh, my nails. Well, that's all right. We know what's going on here. Of course my nails are going to have some soil under them. I really like these crassulas. They grow vigorously. They're forgiving. And they're not ones that usually will throw much of a fit if they do get over water. So the idea is to make sure that that doesn't happen. But if it does, these are normally okay. As long as they don't sit in standing water for too terribly long. The only downside to these crassulas is that they actually are extremely vigorous. This one little plant, I could pop that in the middle and it will fill out this entire container within a matter of months. That's all right, because they're also very easy to manage. It's really easy to go in and pull up the little clumps, especially in a wider soil mix like this. So if this does grow out of control and start to take over the entire thing, it'll be fairly easy to go in there with some little scissors and that tiny little shovel and scoop out the pieces that are in any spots that I don't want them to be if they start encroaching it on other plants. I've used these in a lot of terrariums before. Actually, I think one of the first terrariums I ever made when I was a kid had one of these crassulas and that's what I picked up at a Fred Meyer when I was out visiting my aunt in Seattle, Washington. I thought it was the coolest looking plant. I had it for such a long time. I loved how lush it grew, even though it was mixed in with succulents. That's not something you expect from something that mixes with succulents, apart from the lighting. I don't really know how to fix that there. My apologies. Pat the soil down around that one and move forward. Hopefully you can see this. I hate filming through glass. Now I need to decide the hard structure. I have a few different rocks here. I think this one's way too big over here. That's not going to fit and it has all that moss on it. See that? Isn't it lovely? So pretty. I actually would like to hold onto this for a terrarium that is meant for water-loving plants where I think that that would be more fitting. But I do have this little chip that broke off of it. Very pretty and colorful. And I think that the tone of it will go better with the gravel that I'm using to top dress this with the sand. This is pretty, this chunk right here. Very, very, very sparkly, especially under these filming lights. But it is incredibly large. It barely fits in there. And I just, I don't know. I think that it would be perhaps a bit much. What I like about this piece is it has a flat side to it that's easier to work with. So I can make that spot right there at that angle, which does make the stone itself look bigger. And I feel like it adds a false perspective of there being that elevation there by having it on that slope. That's going to do. I don't want to put a giant rock in this. I want to allow some space for the plants to be set apart with some space in between them. And then in the front of this, I'm thinking just probably a succulent over here, a succulent over there. I have these beautiful, colorful succulents that I wanted to use with this. This is a Graffitosedum of California Sunset. The problem though, is that if I'm being practical here, need to take into account that Graffitosedums, from my experience, they rot just like that if they stay wet for too terribly long. And I do want to use succulents in this that are going to be a little bit more versatile and forgiving. Probably not the best plant to put in here. Even though the goal here is to never let this be stopping wet. It could happen very easily. It's so easy to overwater something this small. So I would prefer to stick with plants that I don't think are just going to kick the bucket as soon as there's an issue there. So I have these gorgeous Echeverias here. Aren't these beautiful? You can't tell, can you? There we go. Beautiful. Absolutely love these. They are called the Painted Lady Echeveria, Echeveria deramburgii. This is a pretty cool Echeveria because it offsets like a Sempervivum does, but it has much more of a full leaf on it than Sempervivums do, which tend to have more of a flat leaf. And the color, that lovely frosty blue, those hints of pink. Beautiful. Soil towards the back will make room for their roots. This is what I was talking about depth-wise. That's way too high. I'm gonna have to work on that. Okay, that's better. Much better fit. Very gently adjust them because I don't want those plants leaning against the glass. I just want them to have some space and air to move around them. Very slowly press the soil down around those roots. Also trying to not make too much contact with this succulent because it has that powder on it that once you wipe it off, it doesn't come back. So it may look a little wonky for a while, but it will reset itself and establish itself and it will straighten out and look fine on its own. Okay, and now a Haworthia. Accidentally loosened the roots upon this one before showing it to you. I don't know the type. Off the top of my head, I don't remember. It's a pretty common one. The growths on this one tend to go up. So when it gets to a certain height, we'll have to cut those off, but that's not a big deal. That just means more plants to propagate and share with other people. It's very easy to cut those pieces off and propagate them. This one's going to be more tricky to get to sit properly in here because it has much more firm rootage on it than the other ones do. That'd be the most complicated way of just saying that the roots on this plant are thicker than the others. Eh, whatever. It's fine. Y'all know what I mean. Now I'm just going in, pressing the soil down, making sure it's around the roots properly since I'm not going to be able to use water to actually disperse the soil evenly. Just making sure it's slightly packed down. It doesn't have to be too tight. It still needs to stay nice and airy because, you know, it's succulents. Now the fun and also tricky part. Get some sand in here. Actually, I'm going to get a lot of sand into this. Very gently spread around all the sides of the plant. Try and use my hand to get the sand in there, but the majority of it fell out between the cracks of my fingers before I could get my fist in there. That's fine. There's no reason to overcomplicate this. Can just fill this sand up from right there and spread it out with a brush. Actually, fingers should work fine. A beautiful rock disappeared. I kind of thought that might happen. Not a big deal. I'll just reach in, pull this out, give it a rinse, and put it back in. Ah, that's much better. Can we even see it? Y'all see what's going on in there? All right, and then a finishing touch. Get some fine details going. I have this gorgeous gravel here. Isn't that beautiful? It's a very light, flaky gravel. I can't remember the name of it. I'll put it up here on the screen. Well, it's called Rio Jingo, something like that. Isn't that pretty? Look at all the color and texture in there. Very, very cool tones, which is one of the reasons that I chose to use the more of a dark rock that has that kind of blue accent on it instead of that pretty piece of quartz. Maybe, I don't know, whatever that is. To maintain the lushness of everything, I wanted to stick with more cool tones. I'm going to lightly sprinkle that around the base of the plants and up on that slope, and then I'll come back and show you what it looks like. And there it is, all finished up and very reflective. It's annoying the crap out of me. I tried to get the gravels flattered around in there in as much of a random pattern as I could. I had it coming down the sides of the big rocks over there, and then from the other side, I was going for like a dry creek bed sort of thing, which isn't really showing on camera. This is, it has an indentation in it. There's a divot in there, so in person you can tell that there's like a bowl in there, but I don't know. Can you see it? Sort of, not really. Very simple, not much to this. I didn't want to overpack it with plants. Just a few things. Since these are all plants that are going to require some upkeep, this Echeveria will offshoot and put out some more pups, which I look forward to. They'll have lots of little babies shooting out, and I think that'll look really cute. This Haworthia back here, I have planted up higher on the slope. I originally had it planted forward just a smidge, but Haworthias, they're not going to be as forgiving as like the Echeveria will be with there being too much water. There won't be too much water. I'm just saying, just in case. I wanted it up on that slope a smidge higher, and it will also require some upkeep. As I mentioned, that will grow up and need the little pieces cut off as it gets too high. Same thing with that Crassula in the back. That will fill out. It'll take over this entire thing if I let it. I won't be doing, I won't allow it to overtake this container. I think that'll look really pretty, having that big, lush greenness filling out the back of this with the pretty bluish silvery shades of the Echeveria, and then the darker green with those fun stripes that the Haworthia has. Oh, it's so cute. When it comes to the cactus and succulent type terrariums, I usually prefer a big open glass bowl, which is, I mean, is it really a terrarium? And it's got all these big gaping holes. I shouldn't have done that. These great big holes in them. Not really. It's more just a pretty container that has no drainage, which is fine. Nothing wrong with that. I guess we all define terrarium in different ways. I tend to think of like the classic old school, like Wardian case type terrariums where the objective was to have an enclosed system to transport plants. That's how they develop. That's not how things really are anymore. It's just a fun little scaped glass raindroppy thing here. Upkeep with this should be very, very minimal. When I go into water this, I'll use a syringe and just very gently get water around the base of the plants. That's another reason I only wanted three in here because the more plants you have, the more water you have to use to keep them hydrated, right? It's easier if there's just a few to just be able to do a squirt of water up there, a little squirt of water around that one, and then some more over here on that etch of area. And as long as there's water in the bottom here, you'll be able to tell since it's glass, can look and see if there's water at the bottom, then I won't be watering it at all. They really shouldn't need. These all tend to be very sturdy succulents. I will put this in my house in a spot away from direct sunlight, but where it's still going to get light throughout the day. Don't want the sun shining directly on here. Even though it's open, the angle of the glass and everything could still fry the plants. So just a nice, bright, sunny spot in the house. Absolutely love those etch of areas. They're so stinking cute. Okay, that's all. Thanks for hanging out while I tossed together this quick little somewhat empty looking terrarium, but that was kind of the point. Didn't want it overflowing with plants. I wanted to be able to appreciate each one as they were. It's so easy with succulents to go in and just pack something full, is what I prefer to do with succulents, is just have something really full and really colorful, but I didn't want that with this. Wanted to make sure it stayed low maintenance and I wanted there to be space for that crassula to grow and for the etch of area to spread. Those were the only two plants where I was positive that I wanted them in here. The Haworthia I was still on the fence with using those grapidacetums, but like I said, I think that this is probably a better way to go. Haworthias don't like water, just like a grapidacetum. None of these plants want to be sitting in water, right? But the grapidacetums, just my experience has been that they tend to rot out first with any amount of their succulents. I've never had a Haworthia or an etch of area or one of these crassulas back here die from having too much water. Not to say it can't happen or it won't happen, but never been a problem before. Okay, comment down below. Say hi. I love talking to everybody. Y'all do some fun things with your succulents and your terrariums, trying to stay busy, try to get through the winter. Spring's almost here. Just around the corner. I feel like I say that in every video. It's because I can't stop thinking about it. I'm so ready to get outside and garden. This somewhat fulfilled a little bit of that itch, but not really. I still, I just want to get outside and plant things. Hey, I hope everybody's doing well, having a great day and a great life and everything's just going beautifully for you. And of course, as always, and most importantly, everybody, keep on growing. Bye bye.