Let's Try Terrariums This Winter For Indoor Gardening

Let’s Try Terrariums Again For Indoor Gardening

Time to bring the tender plants inside…again.

I tell myself time and again not take plants in for the winter. I don’t like indoor gardening as much I do outdoor gardening. So what am I doing this week? Potting up some tender plants  and taking them inside for the winter.  It was so successful last year that I am just repeating the process again. I have so much to bring in. Why don’t I stick with hardy succulents and sedum?

My Mother always told me I didn’t listen. She was right.

Let's Try Terrariums This Winter For Indoor Gardening

As you see, I am doing my indoor gardening with garden planters made of glass! I was at Marshall’s Home Goods and saw a lot of glass containers that were large enough to hold a lot of indoor plants or indoor plant cuttings, so I grabbed some of them. A terrarium would be just a miniature garden. I can do that!

Then I went to the Thrift Store to find more at a cheaper price.  Of course, as it always happens, if I need to pick up something specific from the Thrift Store, there are none.

Let's Try Terrariums This Winter For Indoor Gardening 6
Turned the pear-shape around. Pilea glauca doing well in it.

Does this happen to you? I can be browsing looking for a hypertufa mold. Maybe I am looking for large salad bowls for instance. There will be NO salad bowls. But there are aisles and aisles of glass terrariums. 

Next week I am going through looking for glass terrariums………..Yep, you guessed it. Not a glass terrarium to be found. <sigh>

So you understand why I don’t buy lottery tickets, right?

Let's Try Terrariums This Winter For Indoor Gardening 4
One of the glass containers from Marshalls. $12

Eventually, I did get some large bowls, one with a lid, one pear-shaped complete with stem, and this one in the photo above with a pedestal.

I did bring in my Mimosa which is doing very well outside this summer. I ended up with about five plants and have given one to my daughter for her indoor gardening. (Yes, against her better judgement, she’s is planting some terrariums too.)

Those Mimosa plants (grown from seed) have grown so slowly all year, and then all of a sudden, this one has shot up so quickly in this last month or so. I think it is budding now but I won’t know until they bloom. But these are sure not the buds of a new branch, right?  ( Update: My mimosa didn’t make it. I think I neglected it and didn’t water it enough. Working with succulents spoils you. If you are more diligent, it gets to be very tall and blooms.)

Let's Try Terrariums This Winter For Indoor Gardening 2
This is a cropped closeup from that first photo above. Look at those buds.

No Indoor Gardening in the Basement This Year

In previous years, I have carried all the garden planters to my basement to spend the winter. But this year, since the glass plant containers look so nice, I am putting them in a southeast-facing window in the dining room. I will have more upstairs in a bedroom in the same southeast-facing window.

Here’s the thing: If these plants start looking dead, withered, tacky, and spindly…….Off they go to the upstairs bedroom window.

Did you hear that plants? Now do your best. I would hate to threaten you with the Compost Pile!

Let's Try Terrariums This Winter For Indoor Gardening 7
Got this teapot at Home-2-Home for $2. Those are struggling Baby Tears.

And this teapot of Baby Tears may be the first to go…………to the Compost Pile. If you have any advice for me, I would welcome it. I just cannot seem to grow Baby Tears. My daughter has given me another start of her flourishing plant.  Update: The baby tears did really well. Here is another photo on the Facebook Page . https://www.facebook.com/thehypertufagardener/photos/a.584016138361225.1073741828.582948995134606/940899899339512/?type=3&theater

These are some of the plants I am bringing inside since they won’t survive an Ohio winter outdoors.

Indoor-gardening - The Hypertufa Gardener

I hope I like these terrariums again this winter. So far they seem to be really pretty, but I haven’t had time to kill them yet either. Keep your fingers crossed for me keeping them alive and ready to go out in the spring.

Have a great weekend, we are now heading toward fall and the weather is showing it.  It is going to be cooler overnights this week, for us in Ohio that will be dropping into the 60°s F overnight, but that’s hardly cold when we know that frost will be here next month.

I am so NOT ready.

 

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14 Comments

  1. Karen Schneider says:

    Yes, I do this year they are on my back porch which is enclosed but not heated . So during the day it can be well above 100 and at night it ranges about 50. So I am not sure if they will all survive a test this year .Before they were also in my basement which is some what heated and insulated.Time will tell. I have peace Lilly’s, rabbits foot ferns,bromalids, and orchids a few that I don’t know there names.

    1. It sounds like it would be good for the non-hardy type of succulents. Kind of mimics a desert where is is hot in sun, then cooler at night?

  2. I can grow anything outside….but inside all bets are off! lol! I envy your talent!

    1. Oh thank you, but I’ll bet you are better at it than you think. Just try it

  3. I don’t do a lot of indoor gardening. I love gardening outside, but for some reason I get tired of taking care of the indoor ones. I do have a few plants like a Swedish ivy, and a Pothos Ivy. I also have a few succulents. I like them because they do fine if I go out of town and forget about them. I have never tried a terrarium, though. Yours are very pretty! I’ve never even noticed terrarium planters in the stores before. I think some of those “fairy gardens” are cute. It might be fun to do something like that in a terrarium.

    1. I try not to do indoor gardening, but every fall I am bringing in some more. During summertime, I don’t have any inside. ( That will change this next summer because I have a large container that just isn’t going to work moving inside and out.) I like the terrariums because I don’t have to worry about drain trays or dishes underneath.

  4. You have a couple of burro’s tail plants! (The succulent in your hypertufa planters, in case it has another name.) I brought home a piece from my dad’s huge plant when he passed away, and it’s doing very well in my kitchen window, but I planted it in a yogurt container and it badly needs to be repotted; it’s even broken the plastic pot. But the “leaves” fall off any time I even touch the plant, and I’m afraid to try repotting it!

    1. Yes, that’s a burro’s tail plant. And how nice that you have such a remembrance of your Dad. You can try transplanting it gently. But every little leaf that falls off, just lay it in the soil and it will sprout teeny tiny little new plants. Even if you drop them and they lie around for days, they will still sprout and grow. It is such a forgiving little plant. Thanks for your visit.

  5. These are lovely, indeed! I just brought my plants inside and making terrarium sounds like a good idea. I have few succulent plants that need a new home. Last year I forgot my plants outside and when remembered to bring them home it was nearly Christmas, so the were dead (well some were almost dead and then survived), but this year I did everything on time. Thanks for the nice idea!

    1. Kim Smith says:

      These are so nice. I really love them and it is so much easier than those other years where I brought in a whole pot to care for. I will be doing this from now on. Thank you for visiting.

  6. I have the same problem of never finding what I want when shopping at thrift stores too Kim:). Your terrariums are beautiful. The glass teapot is so fun!

    1. Kim Smith says:

      Thank you so much. And I love my teapot. I am keeping an eye out for more. A collection would make a pretty display.

  7. Did you try googling Baby Tears? I don’t know anything about them, but when I need information about a plant, Google has always come to the rescue!! Good luck. Sorry I couldn’t give any more advice.

    1. Kim Smith says:

      I have googled it and get some advice. But nothing seems to work overall. I just keep trying.

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