Do-it-yourself mini-gardens from cacti. How to plant a cactus-succulent garden

If there are several varieties of cacti in the house, and they are all planted in different pots, then it's time to plant them together. Cactus gardens look very impressive, easy to make, easy to care for. How to make them and what you need for this, read below.

Size matters: determine the size of the composition

First of all, you need to decide on the size of the composition: it will be a simple small cactus plant or a garden in a cup, glass, bowl, or a large composition in an aquarium, bowl, large wide flowerpot. See if there is enough space on the windowsill or shelf, near the window, for a future masterpiece. Take into account the illumination - it should be sufficient, not scarce. In small pots, respectively, it is necessary to plant cacti that do not grow quickly or grow large.

Mini garden in the aquarium

Mini cactus garden in a cup

Selection of cacti

Before proceeding with the grouping of thorny plants, you need to find out if they fit together, or if their cohabitation is undesirable. For example, cereus grows quickly and grows large - it is not suitable for small mini-gardens. And mammillaria and echinocactus do not like temperatures below +15, therefore, it is better not to combine them with cold-resistant cacti. In more detail, the features and preferences of the most common types of cacti can be read.

Soil preparation for a mini-garden

When the choice is made, you need to take care of the soil mixture for cacti. You can go two ways:

1. Buy in the store ready mix for cacti. Prepare only a drainage layer of gravel, small pebbles, broken bricks or polystyrene (what you can find) on your own.

Now it remains only to prepare decorative trinkets.

Selection of decorative accessories for a mini cactus garden

The most unexpected items that can fit in size can act as decor. You can come up with a thematic composition (sea, desert, rural yard and others) or simply arrange it according to your desire and mood. Here are some accessories you can use:

toy household equipment: shovels, rakes, buckets, watering cans;
stones of different breeds and sizes;
marine attributes;
beads of different sizes;
sand of different colors;
small figurines of animals, insects, men, gnomes.

And much more, because human imagination has no limits.

Making an indoor cactus garden

Planting a cactus garden is as follows:

Pour a drainage layer at the bottom of the pot, remembering to make holes in the pot itself.
Pour a small amount of potting mix into the pot.
Place the cacti in a pot for reference and adjustment.

Choose the most good option accommodation.
Plant one at a time, cacti in a flowerpot.
Fill with soil mixture, and put pebbles or pour sand on top.
Decorate at your discretion and taste.
Watering on the day of planting cacti is not worth it.

Well, the composition is ready to admire and grow on the windowsill.

Having created a mini-garden of cacti with your own hands, you can get a lot of pleasant emotions from the very process of planting and decorating. And the originality and beauty of the composition will delight the eyes for more than one year.

Indoor mini-gardens: photos, varieties, selection ...

Every year, succulent compositions are gaining more and more popularity in design. These unpretentious exotic plants suitable for anyone who wants to decorate the interior in a lively and original way. Due to its unpretentiousness in care, beautiful forms and wide color scheme Succulents have become an indispensable element of decor for designers.

The role of succulents in design decisions

A rare design does without living elements - plants. Unfortunately, with flowers there are difficulties due to care. Often due to lack of light, insufficient watering or improper temperature regime houseplants perish, and without them the decor becomes inferior.

Interior decoration with succulents, due to their unpretentiousness in care, has opened up new horizons for designers. These plants are multifaceted, differing not only in the size and shape of the leaves, but also in color and texture. In addition, there are flowering species that make the decor fresh.

There are many ways to use succulents in the interior. The most common of them:

Phyto pictures from succulents. Plants are planted in the ground, which are placed in a deep frame, and hung on the wall. Such a composition is poured from a spray bottle without difficulty.
An alternative to a phyto-picture is a panel of artificial (dried) succulents. It is made into narrow frames and does not need care, and due to the properties of this type of plant, it will long time to please the eyes of the owners.
Compositions of succulents in pots. Interior design does not have to be flashy. Plants are pleasing to the eye in simple pots, the main thing is to correctly compose the composition and choose the right place in the house.

In order for succulents in the interior to look beautiful and delight the owners, you need to follow the rules for decorating and caring for plants.

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Ideas for interior design

From a variety of succulents, it often ripples in the eyes, and good ideas are not formed into one ideal. In order to understand which plants will take their place in the future dream interior, it will not be shameful to peep the designs of designers on the Internet, take into account all the pros and cons of each of them.

One of the easiest ways to make your small home garden unique is with pot mixes. Combining vessels small size, you can create whole compositions, and plants planted singly are more convenient to care for.

It is easy to make a picture of succulents with your own hands. The avant-gardeness of such a piece of decor scares some novice designers, but in practice the process does not take more than a few hours, and the result will please the eye for many years.

mini potted garden

One of the easiest ways to use succulents in your design is to plant them in one large pot. So that such a composition does not look too ordinary, you have to get out.

Every year mini-gardens made of succulents become more popular. How do they differ from ordinary plants planted in the soil? In addition to many varieties of succulents, special decorative elements from specialized stores are used for decoration. As a result, the planted flowers resemble a small corner of nature on a shelf. Due to the specificity of the succulent family, they are often used to create indoor "rock gardens".

florarium

Florarium is a transparent vessel that is open to the outside world only on one side. Such flower pots more like aquariums, but due to the presence of walls, the succulent garden looks voluminous.

It is better to plant moisture-loving succulents in florariums, because holes are not made in such vessels at the bottom, and water evaporates from the soil much more slowly. But plants in glass receive some protection from sunlight, so such a composition can be placed in more lit places.

Horizontal compositions

Succulents and cacti look no less charming in small wooden boxes or other flat containers. The size of such an impromptu pot allows you to create large compositions, build images from plants or transform them into small play areas for children.

Wall panels and paintings

The most difficult to manufacture are paintings and panels of succulents, but in fact, working with them is sometimes even easier than with florariums. The vertical arrangement does not prevent flowers from growing and developing over the years.

Living pictures diversify and highlight the design, so before moving on to the panel option with artificial plants, it is better to work on the real ones. It's not that hard when correct selection soil and frame depth.

A picture of succulents implies that plants remain alive throughout the entire period of use. Due to the fact that this species can exist in rough, rocky soil, the soil is easily held upright.

Despite the weak root system, succulents are well kept in the frame, and due to the absence of the need for abundant watering, the soil can simply be irrigated with a spray bottle.

If the option with live plants turned out to be inappropriate, you can make a composition of artificial ones. This process is much simpler, and in the interior such a thing looks no less impressive. Due to the fact that artificial or dried plants are used in the manufacture, the design uses not only a rectangular panel, but also any other shape - after all, the primer is glued and varnished, so it does not need to stay in the frame on its own.

How to create a composition with your own hands

In order for a corner of succulents to appear in the apartment, it is not necessary to call a designer or florist. Settle these unpretentious plants in a pot with your own hands. You can decorate and transform a composition of cacti and succulents the way your heart desires, even without having at hand special tools.

Basic layout principles

There are no restrictions in the design of the future living corner, except for those dictated by the general style of the apartment and the taste of the creator, but you should be careful with the selection of plants. There are a number useful tips, which are worth remembering before starting the creative process:

If you want to create a unique composition, it is best to use a rectangular, white-painted vessel. In such a container, all attention will be paid to the succulents and decorations inside the pot, and not to him.
When working with vertical compositions, the main thing is to cover the root neck with soil. From above, you can lay and even glue stones, decor and pieces of brick - this will not harm the plant.
If it was decided to plant succulents in a glass vase, you must definitely take care of how moisture will evaporate. If the bud is too wet, the root system will quickly rot and the plants will die.
Living pictures of succulents are best kept for the first time (at least 2-3 months) in a horizontal position so that the plants get stronger and get used to new environment. Only after that, the resulting decor element can be turned over and hung.

Ideas for compositions are not shameful to look on the Internet. In any case, it is impossible to repeat such work, so each work with succulents is a work of art.

What plants are best to use

To create flower arrangements, you can choose any plants, but it is best to use cacti and succulents. They are in perfect harmony with each other, picky in care and add a certain amount of exoticism and piquancy to the interior.

In no case should you add various mosses to succulents. They retain moisture on the surface, and it harms the neck of the plant's root system.

Decorative ferns and crotons look good in the composition. Compared to small succulents, they look gigantic, but they add volume to the composition.

Alocasia is well suited to create a tropical look. This plant looks like a large water lily on a long stem and due to its unusual look refreshes any composition.

What can be planted with

Despite the fact that succulents do not require reverent care, only compatible subspecies of this family can be planted together. It is imperative to pay attention to the following factors:

Plants should grow in similar climatic conditions. You can not plant moisture-loving succulents with cacti in the same pot, which do not tolerate abundant watering.
Do not plant large plants with miniature ones. root system large succulents will simply suffocate the roots of small ones, and they will quickly die.
You can not plant closely flowering and non-flowering plants. The former require much more nutrients during flowering, and because of this, succulents without flowers may simply not have enough of them.

Choice of container and substrate

Anything can serve as a pot for a future composition - from wooden box whimsically shaped to a planter specially prepared for succulents. The main thing is to remember that there must be holes in the bottom of the vessel for excess moisture.

The most popular containers for succulents at the moment are:

Florariums or small aquariums, glass vases.
Deep frames for wall compositions.
Planters.
Loft-style pots made from old boxes wooden boxes and others.

How to plant plants

You need to plant succulents for design in the same way as in ordinary pots on the windowsill, but taking into account the peculiarities of the place and the vessel.

If you decide to plant flower arrangements in a cup or other unusual vessel without holes in the bottom, you need to make them yourself, or choose a more moisture-loving subspecies of succulents for planting.

When working with vertical compositions, the main thing is to let the plant take root, strengthen its roots in the ground. From above, the soil must be pressed down and strengthened. Stones work best for this. They can be glued to the sides of the vessel and to each other for strength.

If the future composition will be in dark places apartments, you need to pick up special plants for it. Leaving succulents without light can quickly kill them. At the same time, some subspecies of this plant can comfortably live in dark corners.

Use of decorative elements

There are many ways to make your composition unique, and using additional elements decor is one of them. You can make them yourself, buy them in specialized stores or pick up suitable household items.

Sand decoration is the most economical and effective way to create a composition of succulents. Imitation of desert rams, a rock garden and simply drawing drawings - these are just a few of the options. Sand opens up a huge scope for creativity.

Florist shops, aquarists and creative outlets sell many miniature items that can be used to create compositions. Small houses, trees, animals and even little men will help to make a real work of art out of a simple pot of flowers.

Subtleties of care

Caring for decorative succulents is no more difficult than caring for plants in a pot. It is only necessary to take into account those special conditions that you have created, for example:

In order to create your own composition of succulents, you do not need step by step recipe. The creative process does not tolerate restrictions, and working with this type of plant contributes to the lack of frames. The only thing to reckon with is the biological limitations of the succulents themselves, which are extremely undemanding. The rest of the designer is limited only by his imagination.

Gone are the days when phytodesigners acted on the principle of "each plant has its own pot." Now the design of indoor plants is approached more creatively and closer to nature - they create compositions that imitate a piece of nature. After all, in fact, you are unlikely to meet a single plant in the wild. They always grow in groups. So why not do it in your home too. For large halls and offices, compositions are created from large plants in large flower beds, and for apartments and small rooms they make miniature compositions in bowls that can be decorated coffee table, mantelpiece or even put on your desktop.

It is not difficult to make such a composition. Just need to follow a few simple rules and then your work will delight you for a long time.

The composition in the bowl is not durable. No matter how you cut the plants growing in them, sooner or later, they become too large and they will have to be transplanted into another container, and another plant should be planted in their place;
Usually, a bowl is used to compose the composition - a low, flat container with a drainage hole. The use of a container without a drainage hole is only permissible if the composition is made up of cacti or other succulent plants that require a minimum of watering. If there is no hole excess water from watering will accumulate at the bottom of the tank and sooner or later lead to rotting of the roots. Therefore, no matter how beautiful the container is, if there is no hole in it and it is impossible to make it, it is better to look for something else for the composition;
In order for the composition to retain an attractive appearance for a long time and the plants that make it feel normal, it is necessary to select plants with the same or similar requirements for it. For example, if you plant a cactus in one container, then your cactus will either rot from excessive watering, or the fern will disappear from excessive dryness of the soil. But if you make a composition from cacti alone (and they are very diverse in shape) or from cacti and succulents (, haworthia, etc.) that require the same care, plants can exist together for a long time. It is also worth considering the soil requirements of plants. Can not be combined in one pot , jasmine sambuc, preferring acidic soils with living on alkaline soils. For the composition, it is necessary to select plants growing on similar soils;
If, nevertheless, there is a need to combine plants with different care requirements in one container, they should not be planted together, but should be added dropwise directly in the pot so that excess moisture cannot get to their roots. In the example of a palm tree, a fern and a cactus, it is the cactus that should be buried in the ground along with the pot;
For the composition, only beautiful, healthy plants. The simplest and most easily accessible material for them is the so-called mixes - Dutch sets of medium-sized plants of 15 pieces per box, which are often sold in flower shops. In our country, these plants from such sets are often sold inexpensively at retail. Among them, you can easily choose those that are suitable for your composition.

How to select and arrange plants

When compiling a composition, it is necessary to choose a plant - a soloist. The largest and most interesting plant in terms of texture, which is planted in the center or most often slightly shifts from the center to the edge of the container. Smaller plants should be planted around it and ground cover or ampelous plants closer to the edge, which will cover free soil and additionally decorate the composition, hanging from the edge of the bowl.

In order to injure the plants less, it is better, without pulling them out of the pots, to carefully place them in a bowl, picking up best option landing. And only when you decide on where which plant should be, you can proceed to the planting itself.

Landing

Put a layer on the bottom of the bowl. If the pot does not have a drainage hole, the expanded clay layer should be larger. We pour a small layer of sand on expanded clay and only then a layer of soil. Lightly tamp. After that, we take the plants out of the pots and carefully place them in their places. We carefully look at our composition. After you have made sure that all the plants are placed correctly, the gaps between them are covered with earth. The earth is lightly compacted and spilled with water. After that, the surface of the soil can be decorated - poured decorative sand, stone chips, cover with a layer of dry or live moss.

Can be used as a decorative element natural stones or colored glass flower pebbles, pieces of dry wood, bark, twigs or miniature figurines.

But you still shouldn’t get carried away with decor, because plants placed in a bowl by a group imitate the natural environment. A large amount of decor is usually allowed when creating short-lived compositions, for example, from flowering bulbs.

Compositions of cacti and succulents

Highly beautiful compositions can be made from cacti and succulents. They grow slowly, so the composition can stand without changes much longer than those made up of ordinary plants. In addition, it does not require frequent watering. But these plants also have their own characteristics - they need brighter lighting, because if it is not enough, the plants grow quickly, losing their beautiful shape.

Compositions from cacti

Compositions from cacti alone are even more durable. They can even be planted in transparent containers, falling asleep in layers with decorative sand so as to create the effect of layered soil. Only in this case, the cactus needs to save the clod of earth in which it is planted, and fall asleep decorative soil only the gaps between the cacti and the walls of the bowl.

Such compositions should be watered very carefully, since excessive watering can ruin the beautiful layers of colored sand.

The surface of the composition is usually sprinkled with decorative sand, stone chips. good decoration shells and small pebbles imitating a desert landscape can serve.

Compositions from plants in a decorative hydrogel

Hydrogel is sold in almost any flower shop. It can be dyed almost any color. And, due to its special properties, it can replace soil for plants for some time. The gel is translucent, through which the roots of plants are visible, which gives the composition a special charm. But the roots must be completely washed from the ground.

Most often, compositions are made in gel from bulbous plants, whose life time is only 2-3 weeks - exactly as long as flowering lasts.

Compositions imitating the landscape

Now it is very fashionable to make compositions that imitate some kind of landscape in general or a specific area in particular - for example, a small courtyard of your country house or your favorite corner of your garden. Plants are selected, produced decorative elements- benches, tables, pergolas, fences - miniature copies of what is in your favorite corner. The planting technology is the same as in all cases - a layer of expanded clay is poured, a layer of soil is poured on it, then plants are planted.

Such imitation compositions are most often created in wider bowls of succulent plants. Cool winter evenings they will remind you of the summer spent in your country house.

They are actively discussing how to combine different succulents and cacti in one container. I think that anyone who has read at least a few posts in this multi-page thread and looked at the wonderful photos of the mixes will eventually have the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating their own composition of prickly (and not very prickly) friends. This guide was created to facilitate the work of the newly-minted designer, as well as to consolidate some of the postulates born in such a lively discussion. I want to thank all the participants of this forum for their help in writing this article, as well as the author of the photos Alena Zavarzina (EleNZ).

As practice shows, making a beautiful mix (if there is something) is not a problem. You take enough succulents, a bowl, a minimum of knowledge on plants and carefully plant ... In the first month it always nice! And then the surprises begin. Someone does not get along together, someone grows too fast, someone, on the contrary, does not want to grow. But it is not interesting to plant a mix twice a year, I want to choose compositions that will successfully grow over a noticeable period of time - 3-4 years, without transplanting and with minimal care. At the same time, with maximum return - flowering, beautiful foliage, the absence of pests, diseases, etc.
There are many tasks, but the only way to achieve what you want is to try different variants and share experiences. And, based on trial and error, it turned out for avid mix-makers that:

Mixes of cacti and succulents are not recommended. Cacti need a cool and dry wintering for flowering, and succulents can do without such an extreme. In addition, if succulents such as aeoniums or echeverias are immersed in complete dryness in winter, some of their leaves may fall off, as a result of which appearance plants will be lost. If we continue to water the mix with cacti in winter, by spring we will get elongated tops, which also do not add additional charm to the composition. So we plant cacti separately, succulents separately.

When composing a composition from cacti alone, it must be remembered that it is better to combine cacti in a composition only symbolically, i.e. leave each in an individual plastic planter with drainage holes. In this case, several problems can be avoided: the roots of cacti will not intertwine with each other, and you can easily plant them if necessary; if an infection or a pest is suspected, it will be possible to quickly and easily remove the sick person from the “communal apartment” without disturbing the roots of the other neighbors. If you still planted cacti without a flowerpot, then it is better to replant them only in the spring, observing all the rules for transplanting and watering.

To compose a composition of cacti, you need to take slowly growing specimens that rarely give children. These can be astrophytums, echinofossulocactus, hymnocalyciums (especially colored grafted forms as a color spot), the Peruvian cereus monstrous form, Selvestra chamecereus (dwarf cactus and bushes well). Mammillaria pinnate (plumosa) and slender (gracilis) are also good.

As one of the ways to compose a mix of cacti, the following option is proposed.

A container without drainage holes is selected, then two-thirds of the height is filled with small pebbles. Pebbles should be chosen of medium size and tightly packed (shake the pot, knock it gently on the table). Then sand to fill the voids, then about 3 cm of earth. Then, as it were, screw the pots with cacti into pebbles, remove the excess. If you lift a pot of cactus from such a mix, a few pebbles may fall off, but this is not scary. After inspection, you can put it in place. Watering such a composition is carried out not in pots, but on pebbles, so that it does not reach the pots with plants, but is always at the bottom. Under such conditions, your composition can last about 2-3 years, of course, subject to the rules for watering cacti. It is very easy to control the amount of moisture - lift the pot and inspect: if the pebbles under it are still wet, then watering is not needed. If it is very warm and dry in your summer, then high humidity must be maintained in the pebbles.

Now about succulent gardens. When selecting plants for them, it is necessary to focus on the conditions in which the mix will exist in the future, and on the growth rate of the plants themselves. If there is penumbra in place of the proposed location, then for such a composition it is necessary to select succulents that can easily tolerate the absence of a large amount of light. It can be haworthia and gasteria with green leaves, crassula with a delicate green epidermis, guernias (guernias, slipways, ceropegia), sanseviers and aloe. But in any case, the most reasonable thing is to keep the mix in partial shade for about six months, but transfer it to a more lit place for six months. Let's say that in the summer the composition stays in a lighted place, and in the winter it moves to partial shade to "revitalize the interior of the room."

And if you need sun-tolerant, slow-growing and drought-resistant, then you need to select plants covered with a waxy coating, or brown in color, covered with pubescence, having ribs and a small size. Therefore, according to such "signs" fit:

pachyphytum, echeveria, sedum, graptoveria, cotyledon, in short, almost all Crassulaceae with these characters;
haworthia and gasteria, which have these characteristics, namely: brown color, compact growth, papillae on the surface of the leaves;
ragworts covered with bloom or pubescence, succulent peperomia with thick leaves and windows on them;
mesembryanthems, easy to keep, such as: faucaria, frithia, unpretentious lithops, etc .;
euphorbia;
miniature agaves and aloe;
sun-loving swarthy (gudii, piaranthus);
plants of other genera with similar characteristics.

When planting a succulent garden, it is recommended to leave fairly large gaps between the plants, so that in the future, growing, they do not interfere with each other, and do not force frequent transplants. To disguise empty spaces, you can scatter pebbles (pebbles) on the surface of the soil, spread out all kinds of snags, sticks, cones, glass, shells, pieces tree bark, plastic toys. By the way, you can also buy (for example, in fishing and zoo-hunting stores) imitations of spiders, snakes, centipedes. The latter can be placed in any mixes to give the effect of surprise. Just make sure your compositions don't end up looking like a pebbly beach. And if you put a large stone in the middle of the composition, then watering the mix will be easier: you can pour water directly on this stone, there will be no erosion of the soil and the water is very evenly distributed.

And finally, some features of succulent plants that were noticed when trying to combine them.

The fat lady does not like ceramics. It becomes greyish and as if dried. At the same time, it remains more alive than all the living, easily breaks and produces children from the apical shoots, scattering them all over the pot.
Pachyphytums are not suitable for small surfaces. Planted so "to hang down", they easily break and go bald. If you plant them in a wide bowl, closer to the center, so that they "lie" - it turns out better.
It is important to combine plants with roughly the same watering requirements together. Otherwise, after a while you will notice that one is “wet”, while the other is sad from dryness.
Very undemanding hatiora. It can be safely planted in mixes.

But, despite careful selection and optimal care, the succulent composition will grow after some time and will require a transplant. On the other hand, it will be a new opportunity for a flight of fancy, because it is so exciting - succulent mixes!


To compile the CS of the composition, you will need a shallow pot of suitable diameter, on the bottom of which you need to put drainage (in this case, large pebbles).		Cacti can be left in plastic pots, or freed from them, as in our photo. If you are sure that the roots are healthy, you can not completely shake off the ground from them.


We fill the pot about halfway with prepared soil, to which granular fertilizers for cacti can be mixed.		We arrange the cacti in a pot somewhat obliquely, guided by our own considerations about beauty.


We fill the remaining free space with soil, not forgetting to compact it.		We scatter pebbles between plants on the surface of the soil, not forgetting about big stone. Mix is ready!