Our Terrarium

I bought a terrarium jar a few weeks ago at Michaels. It’s been sitting on my counter waiting for me to find the time to fill it, and today, I finally found the time. (I was actually searching high and low for activated charcoal, and finally did a search for it today and found that it was the same type of charcoal used in aquariums.)

Everyone was busy (Zoe with homework and Landon/Tony at soccer practice) so Harper and I decided to put it together. 

First, we put in our layer of rocks. Harper tossed the first few in, but after many reminders, he remembered to “put them in the jar very carefully”. He did great.

The next step was to add the charcoal layer. It’s the black stuff you see on top of the rocks.

Next, we mixed equal parts sand and soil. We’re using cacti, so the sand is important. If you aren’t using cacti, sand isn’t necessary. You need to put in about 2-3 inches of the soil, just enough to cover the plants roots.

Harper was very enthusiastic about helping to mix the sand and soil, and I think the smell of the soil was a bit overwhelming to him because he kept sniffing it over and over! I’m not sure if he liked the smell or not though.

The final step was to add our little plants. I picked up a cactus and two succulents, mainly because they’re easy to deal with. I loved the color of the cactus.

I want to put some little figurine’s in the jar too, but haven’t found any I want to include yet. As of now, it’s finished and sitting in my library with the lid on. I’ll have to remember to get a picture of it tomorrow, as we were quite messy once we were finished playing in the dirt!