Pushy and I are on another terrarium mission for Christmas. This time we're working on a gift project for a grown-up and therefore do glass encased ones and also experiment with different plant varieties.
My first idea was to work on an orchid terrarium. But it's a more difficult plant to care for than the last ones we had and I was very afraid it would wilt away, so I suggested to get a backup plant. Pushy saw that the African Violet came in a lovely shade of white with blue edges and therefore we made that our backup plant.
At home, I began repotting the orchid and saw that I made a grave mistake. In selecting our orchid we chose a vanda with the smallest flowers. However I made no mental note of the height of the spikes and ended up with an orchid taller than it's container. Amateur!
I ended up having to pick out the shorter spikes and split the plant into 2 categories - shorter and taller. Taller ones went back into its original pot, shorter ones were shoved into a cleaned out mineral water base which I cut out, together with some dried spagheum moss and charcoal bits.
The entire bottle base with the shorter spikes were still too tall for its intended container, so I went to Youtube and looked up how to trim orchid stems. Finally I ended up with an orchid plant with no flowering spikes, only leaves. It doesn't seem like an exciting Christmas gift, so I think Pushy will be keeping it for his own and while waiting for the new flowering spikes to grow out.
Having disappointed myself with a poorly thought out orchid terrarium, it took me another couple of days to gather courage and make a second attempt with the backup plant - our sweet little African violet.
I went home, whipped out the paraphernalia and began filling out the second jar with charcoal, moss and coloured beads.I eased out the African violet from it's original pot and tried to stuff the soil and roots to for the next layer. Height-wise the plant was appropriate for the new jar, but lo and behold, the width was way too much. Another amateur mistake.
Very unfortunately, the jar was tall and it was a chore to extract the plant out to downsize it. Numerous of the its delicate leaves broke in halves and some in entirety. After peeling away all the broken leaves, I got myself a nice size of the plant to fit into the jar. Finally.. something worked!
Now the African violet fits snugly in the jar, but it looks dirty with bits of soil stuck to the top and bottom side of its leaves. I'm still working out a safe way to clean away the soil without breaking more leaves.
Poor plants. I feel so apologetic to them. Now I will have to monitor their colour and poise to make sure they recover from my unintended mutilation.
No, my thumbs are not green and I suck at gardening!
Can they survive the Terrarium Terror?
♥
