Our Garden Window

In between bouts of studying this weekend, I found time to tackle a project I’ve been putting off for awhile. A few weeks ago, Stephen and I picked up a blooming cactus and another small succulent at Lowe’s, and after making sure I could keep them alive in their own pots, it was time to plant them in a pretty container.

I started with this shallow glass dish from Walmart ($3) and a layer of rocks in the bottom for water drainage.

Next I added a thin layer of potting soil.

This big bag was about $4 and should be enough to fill several more containers.

Also a few weeks ago, I decided to try my hand at propagating a few succulents from some old plants I’d let get too spindly. Thanks to Google I learned that cuttings taken from succulents need to be left out of soil for a few days for the cut ends to heal. So for a couple days, our window ledges looked like this…

Then I planted the cuttings, and when it was time to transplant them to this new container, they looked like this! Success!

The three leaves from my old succulent are at 12 o’clock in the planter below and the two smaller cuttings from the plants are down at 6 o’clock. I made sure to break up the roots of the cactus and the bright green succulent so they’d take hold in the new container.

I left some room for the plants to grow, but the container was looking a little sparse, so I added a few pretty rocks to cover the topsoil and fill in the gaps.

Here’s a shot of those spindly succulents I mentioned. I think they got like this because they weren’t getting enough light where I had them before. Once I moved the pot to this window, the ends started to grow in much thicker.

This is the only window in our house that gets enough light for plants, so it’s gotten a little crowded. I’m trying to get some basil to grow in that little pot in the back!