[TUTORIAL] Domed Terrariums

I LOVE building terrariums and luckily, I live in the perfect part of the globe to satisfy this obsession pretty much year round. Unlike the majority of our beautiful country, we are NOT burried in snow. In fact, we only received one day of snow this entire season and yes, it stressed me out. With that being said, our forest floors are thriving with baby ferns, moss and my newest find - Rattlesnake Plantain - a native orchid. Now that I know what it looks like, I'm finding it all over the place and decided to try it out in a terrarium.

I have posted in the past a tutorial for making these fun Little Forests using local specimens in a different array of vessels. This time around, I decided to try making a terrarium using a 'dome' to cover the plantings (in my case, an upside down vase). Here's a little DIY in case you're interested in trying one yourself.

MATERIALS

terrarium base such as a dish, cake stand, shallow bowl, garden pot base

glass dome (think outside the box)

local foliage with height - ferns, orchids, interesting grasses

moss

florist charcoal

potting soil

gravel or small stones (we used aquarium gravel)

STEP ONE Gather Materials. Take little bits and pieces of nature for your terrarium. I have had success with moss, baby ferns, violets and, fingers crossed, wild orchids.

STEP TWO Pour a small mound of gravel in centre of base

STEP THREE Sprinkle charcoal layer on top of gravel to continue building the mound

STEP FOUR Mound potting soil over gravel/charcoal layer

STEP FIVE Spritz with water if soil is dry to help keep mound together. Make a small divet in top of mound (think volcano) and carefully insert plants without toppling everything over. I used orchids, but a delicate fern would look lovely too.

STEP SIX cover mound with moss - give a good spritzing to help moss root - carefully cover with glass dome starting on an angle at one side and coming up and over plants and down the other side tucking in moss as needed. Give the glass dome a couple good twists back and forth to work out any dirt that may be between the glass and base. Clean up the base and voila - a beautiful nature vessel for your spring table.

*** NOTE ***

The base and glass dome that I used allowed for a margin between the glass vessel and the rim of the plate - I filled the gap with the same moss as in the terrarium. I found that watering this outer border of moss all the way around the dome, let water seep under the glass and wet the terrarium. We'll see what happens...