I’m so absolutely hug-deprived right now that it’s so un-funny, it’s sad. Only the 4L carton of chocolate milk in the fridge is enough to keep away my woes. Oh woe. I guess I should get a cup of chocolate milk right now.

And yeah, I realize that has nothing to do with plants. But the following will. Read on, mon amie, svp!

Quite a while back I decided to make something for J for him to remember me by. He was on a terrarium phase for a bit, so out came the potting soil (or… received the potting soil did I, from dear neighbour mum Auntie D) and the funky glass (courtesy of Wal-Mart) and off we went!

As I said, our story begins with a funky looking glass. It becomes filled with rocks very soon in its journey.

There is actually a thin row of decorative marbles from J (yeah, I’m real classy, borrowing for a gift) and then a lot of smooth round rocks. All the effort in finding nice round pebbles felt a little wasted when I tossed in a good deal of Spanish grass on top.

As the glass stared out into the seemingly endless sea of green grass, it felt quite dirty. Dirt-y, get it? Because I’m filling it with dirt! I’m a riot, I am.

I ended up buying two really big plants and using about 5% of each plant. With this particular terrarium (because that’s what it is, ladies and gentlemen!) I decided to put in a few blooms and leaves of African violet and a sprout or two of basil.

Now if you want you can add a few decorations. I thought a sign might be useful and I realized I had a leftover shiny pebble, and thus the terrarium was made.

After this last picture was taken I did remove a few things, btw, so the terrarium that J ended up getting was a lot more spartan in nature. He’s still watering it though, so hurrah!

If you want more instruction on how to make your own terrarium, check out The Pleated Poppy for a really pretty and straightforward set of instructions. Mind you I didn’t use activated charcoal, just the Miracle-Gro soil that Auntie D lent me. Happy planting!