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hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome
to the first episode of how to terrarium
with me your host Ser design in this
series I'm going to teach you how to
make terrariums of various kinds um
we're going to be making Su terrariums
like this closed tropical terrariums
such as these three and much more um in
this video we're going to be making a
succulent terrarium like
this you need some sort of open glass
container like these you get them at
your local craft store or thrift store I
happen to get both these at a local
craft store um this one was $20 and this
one was $6 if you're looking for a
hanging one of this size typically
they'll probably run you around $25 I
just happen to get a pretty good price
on it um but this is the one that we're
going to be using in the demonstration
second you're going to need to soil that
drain oil you can buy a premixed soil or
you can mix up your own in this
demonstration I'm going to show you how
to mix up your own for this mix you're
going to need some type of soil such as
cocoa fiber Pete Moss or potting soil I
have cocoa fiber here since I have a for
all my reptiles and
amphibians you need some type of bark or
wood chips here I have orchid bark which
is pretty readily available and
cheap you'll need sand of some sort uh
the corser the sand the better such as
horiculture grade sand which is pretty
Co um here I just have play sand which
will work fine for the demonstration and
uh if you want to use it at home it will
work fine as well but corser the sand
the better so if you can obtain it I
would say go for
that next you'll need some type of
gravel um you could use aquarium gravel
or just this type of gravel which you
could get at a hardware store it's much
cheaper uh not as fine but for the price
you can't go wrong and finally you need
perlite or pmus uh we have perlite here
which is pretty cheap and it helps keep
the soil a little bit more air rated and
uh drain a little bit better next you
will need your succulents you can find
succulents readily available at any
hardware store nurseries or even online
um in the description are some links to
where you can buy
succulents um whenever you're buying
them just keep in mind that ultimately
the plants that you have will basically
determine how your terrarum is
landscaped so get some taller plants for
background plants some shorter plants
for foreground plants and some you know
mid-range plants for your midr finally
you'll need some accent pieces such as
wood Moss this is just some sheet Moss
reindeer
liying suggest wher green since it's
natural colors and
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Stones okay so to begin this project
we're going to mix up our soil um
basically you need some type of
measuring tool for this I'm just going
to use a Solo Cup you can really use
anything depending on uh how big your
terrarium is and as you saw that one was
pretty large so we're going to need a
good bit of soil here okay so for this
mix you're going to need three part soil
like I said earlier I'm going to be
using cocoa
fiber so
one
two and
three and I'm going to double this
formula now I'm seeing it in the bucket
I don't think it's going to be enough
for that terrarium so
one
two and
three so that's still three part soil
just doubled it okay now
we're going to need one part wood chips
like I said earlier I'm using orchid
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bark so one since I doubled it
two and then we're going to need one/
half part sand and gravel I'm just going
to do a full cup for both of them here
since I doubled
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it
and then finally we're going to need two
parts
perlite since again since I doubled it
keep saying that uh can do four
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here okay now we're just going to mix
this all
up now as you can see it kind of looks
like a
traditional plotting mix but it's uh
a
lot more crumbly which is what we're
looking
for cuz I'm a su in Fray and you want
Max
drainage if you mix your soil with a
little bit of water and then ring it out
it should just still kind of
crumble similar to how it did when it
was dry that's how you know if you mixed
it up
properly
the Second Step which I'm going to do
right now isn't required but I highly
recommend it basically what we're going
to do is fill up this container about 2
in so depending on the size of your
container roughly like right here with
gravel and then we're going to put a
fine mesh over top of that what this is
going to do is create a false bottom
which will save you if uh you over
waterer your terrarium and uh like I
said before it's not like necessary but
I have highly recommend
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it all right so now we got our rocks in
here and what we're going to do now is
put this mesh over top of it and what
I'm using here is a weed blocker you can
really use any type of fine mesh that's
not metal or that will Rust so I'm gonna
try cutting this here to a good
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size okay and so you should end up with
something sort of like this doesn't have
to be perfect um actually I'm going to
cut a little bit more off now that I see
it in
there just like this uh if it doesn't
entire
cover up your rocks that's okay uh mine
does but it doesn't have
to and so next what we're going to do is
put our soil in here I'm going to put
some rocks on this uh mesh here just to
keep it down from folding over on itself
just just a few and uh basically what
you're going to do is you can do this
with your hands or with the contain
container just kind of sprinkle your
soil in there don't uh compact it like
this basically what that will do is uh
compact the soil and it's not good for
uh succulent plants so just going to
sprinkle this in here like
this keep in mind that your succulents
have soil in the containers with them so
this will uh also take up space but
since mine's pretty large I don't really
have to worry about that as much and as
you saw there I just kind of sweeped it
around that's okay I'm not like
compacting it I'm just kind of moving it
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around and just flatten that out and
we're
good okay so now you have your soil in
your container you may have a false
bottom may not doesn't really matter if
you do and uh the next step what I'm
going to do at least is put in my drift
wood you can do this after you plant the
plants or beforehand um I feel like it'd
be easier in mine just because they're
pretty large and I kind of want to uh
plant the plants around it so I'm going
to put these in and then plant my
plants
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and so here I I'll plant my first plant
I'll do this background plant here it's
kind of taller uh
it's pretty nice looking I like I like
the little red tips on it but basically
what we're going to do is simply dig out
a
little hole with your
fingers again don't compact the soil so
you got your hole
kind of squeeze the pot at the base and
then your plant should just slide right
out you don't want to pull it out you
might ruin the roots or rip some of the
stems and then just going to drop this
into the
hole it's kind of hard working here
through the hole in the front there and
then lightly pack the
soil around the base here there we go we
got that one in how we want it uh I
probably I'll move it around slightly
cuz I'm a bit of a perfectionist but if
you're not as much a perfectionist as me
uh it should be a relatively easy task
so what I'm going to do here is continue
planting the plants uh you'll get to see
this in a time lapse since it will
probably take a little while and uh yeah
I'm going to get started here I'm going
to turn it sideways cuz it'll be easier
for me to plant this stuff but here we
go
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uh sometimes you might have to add more
soil in if you get it on top of the
plants like this uh don't worry about
that we'll take care of it later then
just kind
of put it in like
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that all right so now you got all plants
in there dirt all over all mine um which
I'll show you what you can do to take
care of that in just a second here all
right now as you can see like I said
before I dir over my plants like right
here so what you can do is just get a
drinking
straw and it's better if you have one
that bends you just bend it towards your
plant and you just
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go
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and then you just see nice and clean so
go through do that on all your plants uh
I'm going to do that right now and then
I'll show you the next
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step all right so here's my terrarium
fully planted but looks kind of bland
you know it needs those final touches so
we're going to add some sheet Moss some
reindeer lyan and uh a few stones but
with the stones you don't want to go
overboard if you put too many in there
it'll be kind of distasteful and it just
takes away from the natural look of what
we're going for here so we have some
sheet Moss I'm going to do that
first and uh just kind of break it up it
comes all dried up in
sheets hence the name sheet moss and uh
just going to put
some right here you can kind of press
this in shouldn't really affect the soil
very much and I'm going to try to cover
up most of the soil I don't really like
how it looks uh you know some people
might like how it looks but personally I
don't really think it's very
attractive so slump those plants over
it just going to keep adding it in
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here
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with this
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red so like I said before we want this
to look as natural as possible don't
want it to look like you just threw a
bunch of stuff together and this kind of
is how it is some people like to put in
all these big pebbles and stuff like
that but personally I don't really like
the look of that I think it makes it
look really uh like I said before kind
of distasteful and just un natural so
I'm just basically trying to cover up
all of the soil I don't want to see any
of that
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perite pretty good to me let me just get
a few
more pieces of Lykan in here I'm going
to put a little bit more back there
that
up and get just a little piece right
there
and right
there okay and so now I'm going to add
the stones which this is essentially the
final step I just have some flat
Sandstone here you can get a smooth
Stones different things like that but I
think that
the sandstone look is a little bit more
natural for these type of plants at
least yeah I kind of like how that looks
let's add
one over
there it looks like it got
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broken few back
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here here's how you properly misted your
terrarium I'm using a pressurized Mister
here and you just kind of want to get
like have a more fine Mist just kind of
mist it
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around you probably want to do a little
bit more on the first
Mist just to help the plants get
acclimated but just kind of go
around
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that's
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good
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water you're sucked in the terum every
other day or thereabouts if you're
overwatering your succulents they'll
tend to become translucent or fall apart
if you're underwatering your plants
they'll start to become discolored or
even black if you notice the symptoms of
overwatering or underwatering change up
your watering habits till you get
optimal results it should take a little
while for you to perfect this but um you
should not lose too many plants in the
process if you stuck through till the
end of this video I greatly appreciate
it hopefully you learn something along
the way and good luck making your suck
in a terrarium if you have any comments
or questions leave them in the boxes
below or send me a message uh if you
like the video give me a thumbs up if
you like the rest of my content want to
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come out uh subscribe to my channel and
see more in the near future thank you
for watching and see you
soon