Terrarium From Old Glass Jars and Vases

by Carole

My neighbour gave me a bunch of old pickle jars and asked me if I could do anything with them. Well, apart from the usual wash them and use them for pantry storage or use them as vases I wondered just what I could do with them. Then I thought terrarium. So, off to the local plant nursery and bought a small bag of horticultural charcoal. This is to prevent any plants you put in the jars from rotting with too much water/moisture as of course, the jars have no drainage holes. Bought a couple of plants. In retrospect, maybe the white cyclamen was not the best plant to choose as you cannot get the leaves wet and should water at the base. So advice to anyone wanting to do this is to choose plants that can be misted with water as too much water in the jar causes the plants to die. So water sparingly. Most plants don't like to be swimming in water as it rots the roots. Anyhow, a little potting mix and some pretty, coloured gravel on top and voila! One of the plants was a fossil fern and had a dinosaur label with it. So I used that in the jar as a fun feature. Still got a lot of jars left, so if anyone has any other ideas I would be happy to hear them. This is a fun project that kids would probably enjoy as they can add their small farm animals, toy soldiers, dinosaur toys etc to the jars. Probably makes a good fairy garden too.