I don’t have a green thumb but love plants and my husband and I are trying to incorporate live plants into our home decor. Yes, they are pretty but some can be positive for indoor air quality, and I have found that caring for them can improve my mood, not sure why, guess I just enjoy them. In addition, it is a good lesson for my little one on how to care for plants and teach her how they take in water from the roots and also need light, so mini science lesson for my preschooler. It has also been fun for us to plant them together, so this is a recent planting project we did with some succulents. Just a side note I don’t think succulents do much for indoor air quality if that is your aim, but I love them.
First, we picked up three baby succulents from our local Home Depot, we already had three succulents at home but the pots had gotten too small for them and they needed more room. We also purchased a bag of cactus soil, and some succulent food both by MiracleGro, and a container of pebbles.
We already had a glass fish bowl at home that was not in use so we planned to replant the three larger succulents in there. The three new baby succulents we will put in some mason jars. We had some carbon flakes at home and after my husband viewed some video tutorials thought that layering the bottom with carbon flakes was the best option to provide the succulents with some drainage.
To make the mini garden we used a fish bowl turned planter, we layered a pile of carbon in the center of the bottom of the bowl, around the carbon we made a circle of pebbles so that it held the carbon in place and also looks pretty from the outside of the bowl. Then it was time to add the soil, we selected the cactus soil as succulents like loose soil similar to cactus and it had perlite mixed in with it. We left space at the top for the plants but also put an ample amount of soil because we wanted to give the succulents roots room to grow. Our daughter loved packing down the dirt, we packed down the soil but on the last layer of soil let it stay loose so it was easier to plant the succulents. We tried to space them apart to let them have room to spread out and finally added more pebbles to the surface mostly for decoration.
For our table centerpiece, we had bought a rectangular crate, the perfect size for three mason jars. We put a layer of carbon on the bottom but did not add the pebbles to the bottom because the jars are small. Then we added the cactus soil up to the top measurement line on the mason jar, then planted the tiny succulent, one in each jar, and added the pebbles around the plant. The mason jars fit perfect in the crate and look great on our table. We also followed the directions on the plant food for the succulents and sprayed them with a water bottle to gently wet the soil.