2024, animals, Fantasy, gardening, home, Nature, pets

The Terrarium

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I love house plants.  Unfortunately so does Nimue.  In the first few years after she joined the household, she has decimated ALL the plants.  Nothing was safe from her.  I can’t even start seedings.

As I realized she was laying waste to my house plants, I was able to train her to stay off the bookcase in my bedroom.  YA’s fish, Sheldon has come to live in my room and I hoped that maybe a couple of plants could survive there.  I pulled out all the books and them stacked them sideways at all different angles.  When Nimue tried to climb up (as she had done many times before), her weight would shift the books and down they came, cat and all.  it took about a month before she gave up; Sheldon and my two plants had found a safe haven.

Then about six years ago, I found an inexpensive coat rack at a garage sale.  Just plain black metal but the arms stick out from the rack about 10 inches so it’s made a fabulous plant rack.  I found some inexpensive macrame pot holders so they hang very prettily.  Sheldon has since gone to that great fishbowl in the sky and a couple of succulents have taken his place on the bookshelf.  In all these years since her catastrophic attempts to scale the books, Nimue has left the bookcase completely alone.

So when I saw class at Gertens for making a terrarium I thought that might make a nice addition to my small greenery collection.  It was a Saturday morning – one of the only really cold mornings this year – and about 40 hardy souls had ventured out.  They supplied everything: a little fish bowl, rocks, charcoal, soil, piece of screen and itty bitty plants.  The two folks running the class walked us through the various layers and then let us loose to chose which plants we wanted, which rock, etc.  I actually took notes – in case I wanted to make any more on my own.  This turned out to be very helpful and most of the folks at stations around me took a peek at my notes while we were making our layers.  The class was only about an hour but I really enjoyed it.

The gal doing most of the teaching also mentioned that if we wanted any little critters or fairies or gnomes, we should check out the fairy garden section of Gertens.  I hope she got a commission as I think ALL of us stopped by there.  I got little bunnies and a crystal sphere on a tree stump (it just spoke to me). 

I don’t know if I’ll make more… I’ll have to research how to get the very small amounts of some of the layers (rocks, charcoal) without buying whole bags of the stuff.  And, of course, I’ll have to find a spot where it will be safe from the Plant Ravager!

Tell me about your houseplants (if you have any)!

24 thoughts on “The Terrarium”

  1. I’m afraid I don’t do well with house plants. In the seventies I had several in my El Granada (near Half Moon Bay) apartment – and over the years I’ve had one or two, but I just don’t pay good attention, and eventually kill them. The latest attempt was an aloe vera I inherited from a friend, but alas…

    So we have one spider plant that Husband is responsible for, and we’ve had it for decades – it gets brown tips when he forgets to water, but has several “babies, and somehow keeps surviving.

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  2. We have no houseplants for the same reason as you-a certain cat. The furnace room has a door so that we can start seedlings safely under grow lights. Luna loves to eat seedlings.

    My first 4-H trip to the State Fair when I was in Grade 8 was as an exhibitor of a terrarium. I planted succulents in a gallon glass jar that laid on its side. I didn’t do as well at the State level as I did at the Rock County Fair, but it was fun.

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  5. We also have obsessive plant-eaters in our household; we even have to check to make sure we don’t track any dead leaves in. The only plant we have inside the apartment is a juniper bonsai named Tree. It didn’t take long for the cats to decide not to mess with Tree, though the boychild tried to dig up the soil when he was a kitten. Our landlady has a bunch of plants she brought home from the office in the window of the entryway. I added two of my former office plants–Lois the peace lily and Cthululu the aloe–and Basil the Third, who came from Lunds produce section, to her group. Basil is half-dead, but he’s gamely hung on all through the winter. Once it’s warmer I’ll trim the dead stalks and give him some fresh soil. Basil are not perennials, so we’ll see how long he lasts.

    –Crow Girl

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  6. Jacque

    Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I have a lot of houseplants, although not to the point they got in the old cult movie in which they became a threat to Susan Sarandon’s character. Somebody remember the name for me. They are of many varieties, and right now many of them are things I winter over then use in the pots at the front of the house in the summer.

    Later today another Master Gardener is going to place the fancy plants I am nurturing for the fall plant sale, into foster care. I am afraid I will forget them as we work with Lou’s health problems. But there are 72 of those, and they have fungus gnats that I cannot get rid of. We even have a “Fancy Plants Support Group.” The leader of the fall houseplant sale obtained about 800 fancy plants for the sale before Christmas,then farmed them out to us for care. Mine are types of philodendrens. 2 of them have died, and one more may be on its way out, but the rest are thriving and growing. They soon need repotting. 

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  7. My wife has the greenest of green thumbs. She’s resurrected many plants for friends and family as well as keeping heirloom plants alive. We have ivy from her grandmother that she took cuttings from about 50 years ago, and violets from my grandmother that she got about that long ago too. She transplants, repots, trims, etc., as necessary and they have thrived for decades.

    We used to grow grapefruit and coffee trees in pots but stopped that about two house moves ago. Actually got a few coffee beans off the tree one year and a tiny grapefruit blossom (? not even sure it would have become a fruit) years ago.

    Occasionally we’ll get another houseplant of one kind or another and my wife will keep it for a year or two, then either tire of it and put in into the compost pile or it dies for some reason–limited life, or not meant for our lighting/climate settings.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  9. I have no plant eating critters in my house but I do have 17 houseplants. Back in the 80s I inherited a Christmas cactus (actually a Thanksgiving one) that had been my grandmother’s. I didn’t do anything special to care for it – kept it watered, never put it in a dark room to force blooming. etc. It did really well until this past year. A few of the “branches” fell off. I stuck them in water until roots grew and now I have three smaller ones along with two others – two of which have a few buds on them in time for Easter. I do give several of my plants haircuts every so often to keep them from getting leggy. Otherwise it’s just keeping all of them nicely watered. I do believe that the plants help keep the air in my condo fresher.

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  10. I have always loved houseplants, and have a bunch of them. Fortunately Martha is not unduly interested in any of them.

    Right now, two of my cacti are blooming. They reliably bloom between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and again near Easter. One of my three orchids is also blooming. My huge old jade tree, which has been blooming from January through March for years, didn’t bloom this year. I’m guessing that it may be nearing the end of it’s life cycle. I’ve had that tree since 1992, and I’m estimating that it was ten to fifteen years old when I rescued it from an office where it was being over watered.

    I also have two clivia plants, each inherited from now deceased friends; my indoor memorial garden, if you will. The clivias blooms once a year whenever they feel like it.

    I also have three different geraniums, which are wintering on my four-season front porch. They spend the summer outside in pots.

    Over the years I’ve been the custodian of many different houseplants, everything from African violets, and ferns, to rex begonias, sansevieria, ficus and a huge hibiscus tree. Depending on growing conditions such as light, temperature, and humidity my apartment or house had to offer, the assortment has changed. At the moment I’m stuck with two plants that I’m not particularly fond of. One is a variegated pothos, the other is a peace lily. I’ve had both of them for years. They were a gift, part of a carefully curated container garden. I separated them after the main attraction in the garden died. No amount a benign neglect has managed to discourage either of them. The peace lily blooms with some regularity, the pothos has been trying to take over the dining room for years.

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  11. I, too, have grown seeds from oranges, coffee beans, and avocados, and created terrariums in various size glass containers, including gallon size apple cider bottles.

    During my years at SIU, I inspired my female friends with my collection of house plants. Several of them are still friends, though it has been years since I’ve seen them in person. They tell me that my love of plants is what encouraged them to try their own hands at growing things, both indoors and out. When wasband and I left Carbondale, the contents my two six foot long window boxes full of very prolific purple trandescantia were divied up between several friends. I’m glad that I’ll not just be remembered as the “weird meat lady.”

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  13. I like the header photo too!

    I have an old rosemary plant that I keep over winter. It’s outside all summer until it’s not safe anymore, then I bring it in. It’s still indoors now. Rosemary plants like a lot of water and I usually give it a light mist every day. I love the smell of rosemary. I also have four or five species of succulents in an antique, slightly cracked, blue mixing bowl. I couldn’t bring myself to throw that old bowl away, although I couldn’t use it for anything. So I put some soil into it and set some pieces of succulents in it. They did well. Like the rosemary, I leave it out all summer and only bring it back in when there is danger of frost.

    I love oak leaf ivy. Morgan had them at our home near Montgomery. They were all over the balcony railing. They seemed to love him. I took cuttings and they died. My friend Gary, fortunately, took cuttings and they thrived for him. Gary gave me some of the cuttings and they died again. Recently a friend gave me some cuttings from hers. They seem to be doing well. I’m just not sure how/when to transplant them to soil.

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