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Your terrarium kit is on its way to you (or it has already arrived), you've got your glassware and plants and you're really excited to enjoy this beautiful piece of living art you're about to create to decorate your space. So now what's the best way to keep your terrarium alive and thriving so you can enjoy it for years to come?

Read on for some key tips!

The best pebbles to use for the drainage (bottom) layer of your terrarium are porous and lightweight substrates such as hydroponic clay pebbles ('pon' or 'leca') and perlite. These allow for greater root health due to the airier environments they create and absorb water well so that you don't have a pool of water flooding the bottom of your terrarium. Heavier pebbles or gravel are best placed on the surface of your terrarium as decoration only, but you can use these for drainage layers if you wish as long as you keep a watchful eye on the watering levels and even hide a layer of perlite or pon between the sphagnum moss and soil layers.

In today's post, we offer advice about how to start with terrarium making if you've never made one before. We highlight the key steps from start to finish, and then answer some common questions about what glass container to use, what substrates you need and why and which plants to use,Step 1: Source your glassware, plants and substrates. (You can buy all of this in one go with our terrarium kits.)Step 2: Make sure your glassware is clean - wash it out with warm, soapy water.Step 3: Pour in your substrates one by one - pebbles, activated carbon, sphagnum moss then...

A terrarium is essentially an enclosed little garden for plants such as ferns which like humid environments. They were traditionally used to ship rare plants in the 1800s across the seas when it was discovered the plants survived the long journeys in those beautiful Wardian cases. It meant they had the appropriate water and light conditions needed to not only survive, but thrive. Now, the word 'terrarium' is also used to describe succulent and cacti arrangements in glass, but they are not technically terrariums as succulents and cacti will likely not survive for very long in enclosed spaces as they like dry, airy environments (their native homes tend to be deserts!) 

The month of November has been a busy one!We decided to go Green for Black Friday and to donate 10% of our profits from Friday 27th's sales to a lovely cause. The @treesforlifeuk charity is focused on the essential and wonderful mission to protect the wilderness of Scotland by ‘revitalising wild forest in the Highlands of Scotland, providing space for wildlife to flourish and communities to thrive’. Green Friday is about ‘getting active and healthy, having fun and being out in nature as well as spending time with friends and family. And finally, to give, share and invest in others...