hi everyone Colin here and welcome back to another video so we bought Jade plants for the front and back
door of our house and our naughty bunny chewed off some of the leaves of our Jade plants and we've
started to propagate cuttings and these cuttings I also put in my aquarium and they did really
really well so now we're making this beautiful terrarium from one of the cuttings this video
will show the making of this terrarium and we are going to use an open-topped bowl this we've
purchased from a department store but they're also available in pet stores and craft stores
to begin the terrarium we're going to create a false bottom or a drainage layer and to do that
we're going to use some fiberglass flyscreen mesh which is very easily obtainable and very
inexpensive using the bowl as a guide we're going to trim a slightly larger circle than the base and
that will form a barrier between the bottom layer of pebbles and the upper layer of the potting mix
that the succulent plants will be growing in so that is about the right size of mesh and now we're
going to add the bottoms drainage material this is a medium sized gravel and these stone chips gravel
can be from a number of different sources aquarium gravel works very well or any other pebbles you
may get from a garden supply store depending on the size the container you'll put the layer just deep
enough so that it can act as a water reservoir where water can collect the mesh will now sit
above those pebbles and you can see it is a slightly larger size than the people's themselves and the
next material to go on top of that is going to be some charcoal the charcoal can also be from a
range of different sources it can be in this case from the garden nursery horticultural charcoal the
aquarium charcoal will work just as well I found the pieces in this bag range from very large do
very small so I had to actually tip it into a container so get more of the smaller pieces
for this particular project and I'm using enough charcoal spread across the bottom so that I can
cover the base with enough material to purify the water as the water passes through the potting mix
that's about the amount I want to use and now the potting mix for this particular terrarium
is particularly for succulents so cacti and succulents both prefer a very free draining
potting mix so it will contain a lot more sand and a lot more peat moss sphagnum Moss
which will allow water to pass easily through as I'm putting the potting mix in I'm covering the
false bottom and I'm also going to put some extra potting mix across the back and sides
of the bowl and that's going to give a bit of a sense of depth to the finished layout
so here I have a sloped surface and we're now ready to start putting the plants in creating
a layout I went to the garden store and bought some more succulent plants that would share
the same type of requirements as the Jade plant and amongst the succulents there are many different
colors many different leaf shapes and together you can create a very interesting combination
so here I've chosen some greens some different shades of darker colors and also a very light
highlighting color I've chosen this particular Jade plant piece as the centerpiece of my terrarium
so I'm removing this from my fish tank and it will now become part of our new terrarium
because it's very tall it's going to be right at the back and form the
background to the other plants which are all smaller forming a mid to a foreground
in putting these new plants into the terrarium I have turned them upside down from the pot and
taken about half of the potting mix away from the potted plant leaving just the upper half of
the soil mix around the roots and placed that on top of the potting mix in the terrarium and
I'm just sitting them into an attractive pattern that I think will look really nice
in this terrarium I also have some moss growing inside some planters which I intend to use to
add to this particular terrarium to give it some real impact and a really grown in look
around these new plants and using tweezers I've been able to place the moss in little sections right
around all the different plants in the terrarium and I think it's really looking very very nice
so I'm pleased with how it turned out the initial watering I've just used to clean off
the potting mix from around the sides of the glass and wash the plants down but
just enough water so that it will collect in the drainage layer without filling it
up I hope you've enjoyed the making of my terrarium and I'm gonna leave a link
to Serpa Design who I've spent a lot of time watching to learn how to do this myself and I
hope that you enjoy his terrariums as much as I have thank you so much for watching
I hope that your terrariums and aquariums and going well and thank you for watching