A new terrarium

I love terrariums…and I love thrift store shopping. So this post is about the best of both! I found a glass globe, at the St. Louis Teachers' Reusable Resource Center in the Chesterfield Mall.  This was my second trip to the store, the first one I bought 10# of different items, including things like wine corks, stickers, contact paper, assorted glass jars, some beakers and test tubes in ALL sizes, some lace, some fabric.  All sorts of different things!

All this stuff is donated and kept out of the landfills, so it’s really a great concept…you don’t have to be a teacher to shop there. So anyway, back to my terrarium story.  I stopped last weekend to just check out the store for my second time on my way home from Mom’s house.  I spotted some new lab donated glass flasks and globes.  Big giant globes. 

Here is the one I bought, it weighed 7# so it costed $7…it came with this really tiny plastic base that it sits on.  I didn’t like the plastic look so much.

I cut a base out of wood that I had on hand, painted it bright green and it looks really neat.  I thought I did a pretty good job with my simple tools.

I was scared the globe would get cracked or broken so I kept it in a square laundry basket while I planted the terrarium.  I started with some marbles and some rocks, then added some activated charcoal to the bottom (like the kind you buy for aquariums). 

The charcoal is something I always use, I understand it is really only needed for closed terrariums but I always add to any terrarium I create whether the top if open or not.

I use 1/4 peat moss and 3/4 potting soil for my dirt, grabbed a few plants from my existing container pots on the deck since they would soon be frostbitten and die anyway. 

I added a few inches of dirt and then arranged the plants like I wanted them.  I have two ferns, some mounding moss and some creeping jenny in there.  Probably a bit too many plants but I can always trim them or pull them out later.

I added some polished rocks and put some more dirt around the plants, watered it all well and it was done!

I also added a water globe inside, but didn’t put any water inside. I just added it for some color.

Here it is in the jungle of the houseplants I brought in from the deck before the frost.

I might be linking to these parties!

Some flower garden rearranging

I tend to use perennials in my deck containers, so that I can plant them in the ground in the fall and get more bang for my buck at the garden center!  This is what the stump pot looked like a few months ago…

This stump usually has a big pot of plants on it all summer long.  But truthfully it’s a haul from the deck to water and my hose doesn’t quite reach.  So, my pug willing, I planted all around it with perennials that hopefully will make it a low care flower bed.

I get a lot of my plants at Lowes…I do not buy them full price, I wait for them to clearance them.  I found this peach day lily for $1.  It has already bloomed this year, but the regular price was $15.97, since it was a giant pot. 

This guy it my supervisor.  He tells me what looks good where…

Here he’s telling me to trim the willow tree that hangs down over the stump.  I declined, he walked away!

I planted the whole pot of flowers that was on top of the stump around the stump.  I just pulled it out of the pot and dug a hole and dropped it in the ground.  It has two purple fountain grass, a bunch of creeping jenny and some dianthus, so all that will be back next spring!  The purple fountain grass was $1 each for a medium pot, on clearance at Lowes and the creeping jenny was reduced too.  Patience is the key to great buys at Lowes in the plant category.

Since someone I know likes to dig in the dirt, (who shall of course remain anonymous) I put all sorts of rocks and seashells on top of the good digging areas.  If an archeologist ever excavates my little chunk of land they will have to assume this was an ocean.  I have tons of seashells all over the place!  And someone (who shall of course remain anonymous) carries smaller seashells around in his mouth and scatters them all over the yard.

Now back to some tips for plant hunting at Lowes…you need to go routinely to get the good plants.  I go during lunch several times a week during peak season.  There are two things to know…they keep a clearance rack in both the inside plant area, so it is there year round inside.  And they keep a rack, usually at the back of the garden plant area outside.  I believe neither one is watered after the plants are placed on those racks.  I have seen some pretty dry sad plants there, ones that have been wasted, guess it makes good business sense to not spend man hours on things that don’t bring much profit anymore.

I added a few of my cement garden balls to the stump to keep any pug sitting at bay.  You can go here to see how I made them.  So go check out Lowes and see if you can find any cheap plants to plant for the rest of the summer and for next spring too!

After a week or so the creeping jenny has started to take over the stump! 

I might be linking up at these great parties!

What I have been doing lately…

Gardening…

Playing with this pooch!

Enjoying taking pics in the mornings!

Love how the light plays in my yard…

The first moonflower vine bloom of the summer…

Working on my new guest bedroom…

Making lots of new things…

Learning how to work with resin and making all sorts of pretties!

Love these pendants!

Creating so much that I’ve had no time for blogging!

Container planting and other flowers

Yup that’s an amaryllis sticking out of the top of my stacked pot planter. It used to be 3 pots stacked high…

Then this happened…an accident caused by a pug chasing a Great Dane.  It was quite a sight.  So now the stacked pot is only two pots high.

Around this time of year I stick flags in planters all over the deck.

I love bright flowers and easy to grow flowers.

Mom gave me this peacock décor for my porch planter. I love me some peacocks!

A hanging plant with three different kinds of bloomers.

I put a big shallow pot on a stump and put mulch around it (those same two dogs I referred to earlier keep digging it up) and it looks great by the willow tree.

I think every year the day lilies bloom earlier, this year they are really pretty and tall!

I found purple fountain grass at Lowes for $1 each so I planted four clumps of it in our “pet cemetery”.

Purple coneflowers come up in the yard like weeds.  Sometimes I just let them bloom before I cut them down.

Coreopsis blooms every where and the dusty miller has taken over as well. I need to clean out my perennial garden and start over next year. 

The house looks so cozy with the flowers and the grass cut!  Hope you are having a great week!