Make your own terrarium

Fran Leake (right) demonstrates how to make a terrarium for the Fulton Garden Club. She's hooked on planting them, she said.
Fran Leake (right) demonstrates how to make a terrarium for the Fulton Garden Club. She's hooked on planting them, she said.

Terrariums let you grow your own world, right in your living room.

That's one of the reasons why Fulton Garden Club member Fran Leake loves planting them.

Another reason: They're adorable. She likes to create little fairy garden scenes, complete with plants, landscaping and furniture.

During Thursday's Fulton Garden Club meeting, she showed club members how to build their own terrariums. Leake advises starting with a theme.

"I've been thinking about this for a month," she said.

Due to the time of year, succulents are the most readily available houseplant, she said. A shopping expedition to Callaway Fields in Mexico helped kick-start her imagination.

"So I tried to pick ones with pink on them," she said.

Combining the succulents with some interesting rocks and sand she brought back from a visit to Florida, Leake came up with a pink-tinted desert theme.

Other popular plants for terrariums include ferns, mosses, jewel orchids, peperomias and nerve plants. Just make sure to choose plants that like similar levels of water, humidity and light - ferns and cacti don't coexist well.

The next step is gathering materials. Leake built two different terrariums: one in a small fish tank and one in a former coffee carafe attached to colorful candlestick holder. Aside from the containers, she also brought rocks, sphagnum moss, sand and cactus potting soil. Those formed layers - bottom to top - to promote proper drainage for the plants. Succulents don't like having wet roots.

"They don't really benefit from being in just sand, though," Leake said.

She sculpted her layers to make little hillocks and valleys. Rocks became bluffs and boulders.

"I like to build different planes," she explained.

Then in went her plants, some plucked to look more like trees. Lastly, she decorated with more sand, decorative pebbles and fairy garden furniture. The centerpiece was a small pond made out of a mint tin with glued-on rocks.

Because it's a succulent garden, this terrarium will not be covered with a lid, she said. Terrariums with humidity-loving plants can benefit from being sealed in, however.

"Ideally, this would have a top and be self-sufficient, but with succulents you can't do that," she explained.

The completed terrarium will be watered every couple of weeks, Leake added.