Terrarium Christmas Fairy Garden! 🎄🪴🧚‍♀️ // Garden Answer

Hey guys, how's it going? So today we are in the Hartley to put together a terrarium arrangement, and it's going to skew Christmas holiday because I've got these gorgeous little poinsettias, this little bottle brush tree, some various miniatures in here, and it looks glorious outside. Like the sun is shining and it's making it very cozy in here, but the wind has been blowing so hard all day. We haven't had wind like we've had today for a while. In fact, it blew all the lights, the Christmas lights off our barn. They're all sitting on the ground. And Aaron's whole family's coming over tonight to view the Christmas lights. So those are just going to be lit sitting on the, hold on, maybe they won't be lit, I don't know. But they'll be, they are on the ground, either way, lit or not tonight. So this seemed like the perfect project to do. In fact, Ken brought up some terrariums from the warehouse. Oh, it's been like a month or two ago because I really wanted to put together a terrarium and it just worked out to do it today. So I'm very excited about it. We'll walk through the steps of how I like to layer my terrariums because you know, a lot of times you see the layers of stones and soil and moss and things like that. And I've got some really pretty miniature plants here. So there's a couple varieties of miniature fern. We've got a miniature peperomia. These are all really sweet. And I've had these in the studio for a while too. And I think they'll be happy to get out of their containers and into some other larger vessel. And then of course the little poinsettias, which I will bury them in the soil in their containers because these will not need as much water as the ferns will. And these have a little wick that wick up the moisture into the container here. So anyway, that's worked well for me in the past. If I'm doing an arrangement with plants that require differing types of water. All right, so the first thing I wanna do is actually prep our bottle brush tree because I want this to be kind of a Christmas scene. I want it to have lights. It does have lights worked into it here. But I think I'm gonna take those out because I left this upstairs in our loft. I bought these last year. And there, you know, it's apparently a little battery in there that corroded. And anyway, I can't use that portion. So we're going to extract the lights it has. And I've got some really cute, these are multicolored, very festive looking lights. And I've got a couple of these so we can really light this tree up, I think. So let's start off by cutting out the old strand of lights, taking these out. The one benefit, not benefit of wind, but the one nice thing about our forecast, I should say, is that we have a lot of wind this morning, but it's supposed to be followed by a bunch of moisture starting late this evening through tomorrow and for several days. So hopefully that is the case because if not, I would have to be outside watering stuff because the wind, even in the wintertime, it just dries everything out so fast, especially containers. And I don't have it on my schedule to water containers until next Saturday, but I think we'll be able to get away with waiting if we do, in fact, get a lot of moisture. Okay, there's the old strand of lights. It was only one, two, three, four, five. That was a strand of six lights. My goodness, I don't know how many are on this, a lot more than that. So it does have this little battery pack, which we're just going to hide behind the tree once we get it in there. And I'm going to have to do most of the arrangement standing up. So I'm going to try to prep everything I can while I'm sitting down here. I always get these all gobbed up. I'll light right at the tippy top. It's going to be the cutest thing. I haven't done a miniature garden in such a long time. Okay, let's see. There we go. Okay, so now the question is, do we put the other strand on? I think so. We may as well. I don't even know when I picked these up or got them or what they came with, but I've had them in my tub with all the rest of my fairy lights that I have. And I knew they would come in handy one of these days. The only nice thing about that old strand of lights is that the silver wire, you couldn't see as much as the gold, but I guess the gold brings extra festivity to the whole arrangement. That's what I'm going to go with. Okay, so that is done. So I'm going to turn the lights off until we've got them in there. And then I want to prep some kind of a little floor covering because I want this to be almost like a Christmas morning scene, if that makes sense. So this is the Christmas tree. And I need like, I was thinking, see this ribbon right here, it says Merry Christmas. So I'm thinking if I cut it like this and make a little rug out of it, that might be cute. Okay, so we've got that right there. I'm going to fray the ends. It is wired, so I don't know how this is going to go. Let's see. Oh, pretty good. There, that looks a little bit more rug-ish, rug-esque. Okay, there's our rug. I don't know if we're going to use it or not yet, but it is prepped. And what else? I wanted to prep a couple of little ribbons because I might do one of these. I'm not going to glue it on yet though because I want to possibly make a little bunting banner to hang, like maybe even from the top of the lid here inside, bring a little color up top. So we'll use a piece of twine, and we'll use the same ribbon, just this little piece we have here, and I'm just going to cut little triangles. Like this right there, you see that? It's like pretty little. I think that'd work out great. You know what, I don't think I want to have the little wired edge as the top. I'm going to take two on that. Yeah, I think that'll be better and a little cleaner looking. I think that'll be really cute. It's kind of pretty showing this side too that has a little detail from the ribbon, but I think once we get everything in here, it might make it look too busy. So I want just the solid red side to be what shows. Okay, isn't that cute? I need to make it a little longer. There's something about both paper chains and bunting banner that just, I don't know, speak to me. I think they're so sweet. So this particular terrarium, you can see is hinged on the top. I love that it has the chain. That makes it so easy and nice. But yeah, if we have something like this in here, won't that be so sweet? Okay, I'm going to make one more that's shorter because I kind of think we'll go, kind of a deal, maybe? Is there such thing as like stringless hot glue? Hot glue that does not create strings? Or is there like some technique that I need to learn to eliminate the strings? Oopsie, there we go. So there's our shorter one right there with all the glue string sticking off of it. Ooh, you know what, while I'm at it, I told Samantha I would fix her hair barrette. Told her I was going to have the hot glue gun on today. Let me do that really quick. There, good as new. Okay, I think that those are all the crafty things I needed to do, unless we decide to make more ribbons. But I don't know, this red is so much brighter than the red that we're using, so I don't know if I'm going to use that or not. Probably doesn't matter. Okay, so now we need to start in with our terrarium. And I was just taking a closer up look at this. I don't think it's watertight. It's not. I can see little bits of opening, like very, very tiny. But I think what I'm going to do before we start in with our soil layers is I'm going to get my hot glue gun in there, and I'm just going to act like silicone, kind of, and go along the seams. You won't see it because it'll be on the metal part. Anyway, I'll see if I can get a close up with my phone. And it probably wouldn't matter if you're going to be setting this on some kind of a tray or a platter or something like that. But if you were to go and set this right down on a piece of wood furniture, you would want to know whether or not it's watertight or not. Because we're going to be building this like it's a container with soil, and I'm going to be watering it. So it will release some. Let me show you. See the light through that little seam right there? That's something that I'm going to use the hot glue to kind of plug up a bit. So I'm just going to take the hot glue gun on the inside and then just run it up like the inside of this metal piece and then along the bottom as well, just to kind of help plug it up a little bit more. Problem is, is we can't line it, you know, with anything that's waterproof, because you'll see that through the glass. There. That didn't take much effort, thankfully. And I will feel much better about putting stuff in here that's got moisture. Now, the biggest thing for me when I'm putting together a terrarium is making sure I get my layering right. Because what happens when you put, like in any container, terrariums, containers outside, whatever, if you put a gravel layer, like you will see, and I'm going to create a faux gravel layer in here. If you create that at the bottom of your container, the soil that's right above it, that's the point where the water that you put in from the top, it's the point where it's going to be the most saturated. The soil is naturally going to want to act like a sponge right there, right at the bottom of it, before it drips down into the gravel. So what it essentially does is moves the most moist layer of soil up closer to the roots of your plants, and that can cause rotting faster than just putting soil all the way to the bottom, because that point of saturation then will go down lower instead of being up higher, if that makes any sense. There's a really good picture online somewhere, I'll try to find it, that we can put up that kind of shows that diagram. So what I put in first though, before I do any rocks or soil, is charcoal. And charcoal is what will help absorb smells. And when you're doing anything in an enclosed environment, I think that's really important to think about that. You don't need to use a tremendous amount, just a little bit at the bottom. So we'll put that in first. There we go, just a small handful. And that will help in the future, keeping it from smelling. Now we're going to go in with our layer of stones, and I've got these kind of brownish looking stones. And what I do is just do a layer right around the exterior, not in the center. So as we go in, you'll be able to see it from the outside, and it will look like it's a solid layer to the bottom, but it won't actually be. So that's what it actually looks like from overhead. So if you look at it from close up on the sides, it looks like it would be a complete layer. I mean, we've got a good inch or more of rocks there, but it's not actually going all the way down. Now we'll have soil in there, which I need to go grab. I'm going to go get some soil. Okay, I've got my bag of potting soil. So I'm just going to grab a handful of it, put it in the center. Then I'm going to want to do a moss layer around the exterior. Pile that up a little bit. Okay, and then I've got a couple of options. There's like this forest terrarium kit. I kind of like this. I'm going to open this up because this has a little bit of bark in it too. So like you can do something like this. This is just bulk preserved moss, which I'm going to use a little bit of this, but I want to get at the bark that's in here. If you want to get like something that's like an all-in-one sort of situation for an entire terrarium, this will get you there. Yeah, because it's got, oh, I may not have to get into that bag. So this has four different types of moss. This is what I want right here, this little bag of bark. And then it's got a bag of stones too. Okay, so I'm just going to take the bark and go around the exterior again. And you can make these layers look however you want. I've done terrariums in the past where I use like teal and white and black sand and create different levels. And I think that looks really cool. And then I like the look of this right here. I'm not sure what this one's called, but it's a kind of a looser moss. It's really pretty. So we're going to go in with this layer next around the exterior. And you can pre-moisten this if you want to. And the gravel I started with is just an aquarium substrate. You can get them in massive bags. And I find that nice to use. You can get lots of different colors there too. Oh, that looks really pretty. What a mess though. The floors are super dirty in here right now. So I get to just wipe that right off onto the floor. Quite nice. Okay, more soil now. All right, so here is a closeup of our layers that we've got going on, knowing that all the way to the bottom we've got soil and then just that little skiff of charcoal. Isn't that pretty though? Look at that. I love it. All right, the first thing we're going to go in with is the biggest piece, our Christmas tree. So I'm going to hollow out a little spot because I want to bury it up to the wood or just over the wood. Yep, that's about perfect. I don't know how I'm going to hide these little things. I might have to make like a little Santa's bag. Yeah, let's do that. I think that's a good idea. It'll look like just a bag of toys sitting to the side maybe. To do that, you know what? I'm going to pull this out a little bit more. I got these big spools of ribbon for $2.50 a piece. And there's a lot on these. I got several of them. I could do like this. I need to leave it open enough on the top to where we can still turn them on and off. We will have a Santa's bag. There. There's our Santa's bag. And you can reach down through the top to turn the lights on and off. I think that'll do. It's better than seeing the cords. I wonder how this would look over there. I think I'm going to actually take this out. Do you want to put something green in here or another red? Probably green. See, I'm removing some of the soil from around the fern's root ball. That'll just make it a little easier for me to plant it. You guys, that might be it for plants. It's a pretty small little space. I don't want to jam too much in there. And it doesn't look like anything has come through the sides. Like no dirt, no dust, nothing like that. And with terrariums, we're going to be watering so sparingly and carefully anyway that it shouldn't be so much that it saturates everything and runs out. Shouldn't be. Not to say that it can't happen, as I've done that before lots of times. A little overzealous in the watering department on occasion. Okay, I think we're going to go in with our little rug to see if it fits. Oh, that's so cute. Okay, I've got a couple of little pine cones I'm just going to tuck in, I think, around the base of the poinsettia. And like right here, there we go. And maybe one more. Boy, is this the first time, other than the succulent arrangement, I've used a Lazy Susan. That's really nice. I should have done that a long time ago. I know a lot of you have suggested that a lot of times. Okay, so I'm thinking maybe right here. We've got to sweep our rug. You know what, I think, take the rug out. I'm going to put some type of top dress on top of the soil. Maybe even just more of this bark kind of mulch so that it keeps the finer soil from getting on top of everything. That's what we're looking like all the way around. Here we go. Now we're going to go in with our super cute stuff. I've got this little miniature train we're going to put around the base of the tree. I don't know if I can get the wagon to fit. We might have to try a few configurations until we get this right. I really want this wagon in there. I want to make it look like this little wagon's just full, like brimming full of garden-ish, gardening gifts. Little watering can gift. Look at these itty bitty hand tools. Aren't those the cutest? And this right here I think is my most favorite piece. It's an itty bitty organic gardening magazine. Look at the size of it. Popping it right down in the wagon. Oh yeah, oh that's so cute. Look at it in there. Oh, sorry about the glare. That is a wagon full of gardening presents. I love it. I wonder if she would be better off like here maybe. Oh, it's so cute. I'm going to pop one more thing underneath the poinsettia really just to kind of add a little brightness in there. It's a little miniature candy land, which is perfect because that's what Samantha loves to play. Benjamin will play it too. Look at how cute that is. And then it has the little actual board for it that you can put nearby if you have space. But I think we're just going to have space for this. Okay, so now we just need to hang our bunting banner. This is going to be a little bit of a trial and error, I think. I think if we go from here, right above the chain. Trying to determine the placement of this next bunting. I think it needs to be up higher. Maybe here. It can come over like that, yeah. Okay, so it needs to go about right here. Oh, that's so cute. Oh my goodness. I love it. I think we're done. I mean, we could keep adding stuff to it and doing really fun things. But I think that this is complete. We've got our tree with our Santa bag. We've got a fern and a poinsettia in there. We've got our garden gifts, our Merry Christmas rug. We've got our little Christmas fairy holding a present. Our bunting banner, which makes it look extra festive. I can't wait to see what this one looks like when it's dark out. With those lights in the tree. Now, as far as watering something like this, I had planned on keeping that poinsettia in its container. But in this case, only using two plants and they're far apart from one another. They're not right next to each other. It'll be really easy to control the amount of water each plant has. And I usually use just a great big syringe. I think it's like 150 ml, I think. 100 ml. I think I have one larger than that though too. Anyway, it's easy just to use a syringe that you can draw water up in and then they have that pointed tip that you can put down in there and just put water in right around each one of the plants instead of watering the whole thing, because you would mess up the rug and all that kind of stuff if you tried to. I'm trying to get the hot glue strings off this. But anyway, yeah, if you tried to water with a watering can or something like that, it would be a little bit of a disaster with something like this because you've got so many elements that you don't want to get wet or mess up the soil to where it goes over the rug and makes it dirty looking. But I think this is a super sweet and festive looking fairy garden. And I was so excited to use those little pieces, the little watering can, the little hand tools, the gardening magazine. I mean, how perfect is that? Ah, so much fun. And then again, going over the layers of the terrarium, I think it's just a good refresher. I haven't built a terrarium for a little while, but I have had really good luck building them this way. And I used to do like the full on layers of everything and I just didn't have as good of luck with my plants. I just didn't love it quite as much. So this has been a really good method for me anyway, putting these sorts of things together. And that is going to be it, you guys, for today's projects. I will try to get some good closeups of this. I know one of my cameras overheated. That's how warm it is in here right now. I had to prop a door open and now I can hear the leaves blowing in on the floor. But anyway, I'll try to get some closeups. Maybe we'll put it on a little spinny thing so you can kind of see the whole thing all the way around. But I'm just really pleased with it. And what a fun little project to just sit here and work on, really pleasant way to spend the afternoon on a windy day. Oh, also, I wanted to just mention our holiday video posting schedule and I'll mention it again. We won't be posting a video, of course, on Christmas Day and we're gonna skip the day after Christmas as well. That's a Friday and that way, you know, our video editor and all of us can have a little bit of extra time to hang out with our families. And then the next week, we will take New Year's Day off. I'm not sure about the day after, but I'm still planning on posting that day. I'll let you know if something changes. But those are three normal days we usually post that we will not be posting in the next two weeks. So just wanted to make you aware of that. Other than that, you guys, thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you enjoyed seeing this come together. Now I have like this massive mess to clean up around me and I've got to vacuum the floor. So that's what's ahead of me. Hope you guys are having a great day and we will see you in the next video. Bye.