By Charity Shumway |

More Plant Presents! Terrariums

(image via Garden Atlanta)

I have come up with the perfect Christmas gift for my husband. (Dear Greg, stop reading this blog post RIGHT NOW). Okay, everyone else, let’s proceed. As I was saying, the perfect gift: A terrarium. Mostly, it’s perfect because I want a terrarium, and we live together, and you can do that math pretty easily. But I’m not just giving him a terrarium with the ulterior motive* of giving myself a terrarium. You see, the other day I overheard him mention he loves succulents. In ordinary conversation. Like, blah blah sports, blah blah succulents. I’ve rubbed off on him!  He knows and uses the word succulent!  Not just knows and uses it, uses it to declare his affection for them as a category of plants. So, if the man likes succulents, succulents he shall have! And do you know where succulents find happy homes? Maybe you’re about to say Tucson, and that’s true, but the correct answer for today is Terrariums.

But now we come to a complication. Terrariums intimidate me. Maybe it’s because incredibly stylized, artistic, and beautiful terrariums like this one from Twig Terrariums are all the rage in Brooklyn right now.

The  reason I turn to gardening for creative expression and not to precise art forms like origami, or, I dunno, bridge building, is that I’m messy. Not messy enough to be a wild, avant-garde painter or anything like that, but messy enough that layers of sediment I interact with would most likely not benefit from public display.

So I have a temporary solution. Until I get up the nerve to build my own possibly hideous DIY terrarium**, I’m going to let Etsy rescue me. As it often does. Behold, my top five Etsy terrariums. One of these is mostly likely going to be the one. So, Greg, if you just read this whole thing DESPITE my warning, you still don’t know which one. Christmas saved!

1. Tillandsia Moss Garden from Lief Design Interior Gardens. $16.95. These plants are actually air plants, not succulents, but they have a similar look, and they require EVEN LESS care. Can’t complain about that.

2. Modern Succulent Terrarium from Terrarium House. $98. Pricier than the Tillandsia terrarium, but bigger too. Plus it has the succulents I’m looking for. The striped one just right of center is particularly charming.

3. Succulent Terrarium Globe from Succulent Designs. $25. This beauty is actually a DIY kit. Which kind of defeats my whole purpose, I know. But it sounds like it’s a decidedly unfussy assembly. Just some soil and rocks and succulents. No perfectly placed white unicorns to worry about (not that I don’t appreciate perfectly placed white unicorns. Just that I fear I would not perfectly place them myself).

4. Teardrop Lichen Terrarium from TinyTerrains. $30. Once again, not succulents. But the lichen in this terrarium is beautiful, and it would give Greg the chance to master even more plant vocabulary.

5. Gentle Reminder Terrarium from Twig Terrariums. $50. You caught me. No succulents again. And that’s not the only bit of cheating: this guy isn’t from Etsy either. But it IS available online, made by the very people whose unicorns inspired my fear of DIY terrariums in the first place. It seems to me as though that little guy has leapt from behind the moss bushes to ambush a passerby with his affections. I am supportive of this ambush.

* Back to the ulterior motive I mentioned. I just have to share a terrific line I encountered while rereading a novel this morning. “Life is clearest when guided by ulterior motives.” From Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld. Man, I love that line.

** Let’s also get back to my own possibly hideous DIY terrarium. Everyone says its not that hard.  Sooner or later, I’m going to give it a try. Rest assured, I’ll post the step-by-step. That way, you can build yours at the same time, then look at the pictures of mine and compare. My prediction is that you’re going to come away feeling REALLY good about your work.

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2 Comments

  1. Solar Gardens | March 23rd, 2012

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