​An Easter garden - in a jar!

Has lockdown inspired a strong Grandmillennial vibe throughout your household? Or does your interior décor lean towards gorgeously unpredictable Cottagecore or meticulously beautiful Japandi? These sound-bytey interior style trends are slated to be the favourites this year and beyond. This is good news, and a big learning from our lockdown experience: home décor is devoted to nature, comfort and wellbeing.

Dominating these aesthetics is the outside/inside (and vice versa) movement. This design approach celebrates blending creature comforts outdoors and bringing the power of nature indoors. Soft furnishings and rustic, comfortable garden furniture has transformed our approach to outdoor areas. Nature dominates interiors through soothing, neutral colour palettes, and clever floral or foliage arrangements.

Springtime is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our homes and try something new. Creating and curating your own Easter garden in a jar is a wonderful experience, from beginning to end. Cheaper and easier than you think. Spectacularly beautiful, too.

Glass gardens: Perfect projects for large glass jars

Similar to the traditional terrarium, glass gardens are easy to curate and maintain if you understand the basic principles. Cleanliness is key. Keep like with like. Simple is best. If you follow these three core tenets you guarantee a detailed, beautiful miniature glass garden.

There are two main types of glass gardens: closed and open. As a general rule, closed favour tropical foliage, and open favour arid foliage. When selecting greenery for your glass garden, it is essential to choose plants with similar needs and care requirements. If you see a glass garden featuring a mix of tropical and arid plants, they usually don’t survive longer than a couple of weeks as their day-to-day needs sit at opposite ends of the care spectrum.

Grow healing houseplants inside gorgeous large glass jars

Houseplants are wonderful wellbeing conductors. They remove carbon dioxide and other toxic chemicals from our household air supply, and fill the home with rejuvenating, life-affirming oxygen.

Studies show that plants enhance our overall mood, reduce stress and galvanise productivity. Our minds are engaged and switched on. One study revealed plants reduced headaches and overall fatigue by 25%. Patients recovering from surgery with plants in their hospital room experienced less pain.

Here are some examples of easy to grow and maintain houseplants that are proven air and mood purifiers:

- Spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum)
- Madagascar dragon tree (Dracaena marginata)
- English ivy / common ivy (Hedera helix)
- Chinese evergreen 'Silver Queen' (Aglaonema)
- Bamboo palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii)

How to create a glass garden using large jam jars

Creating and curating your glass garden is also a fabulous opportunity to work with large jam jars and glass bottles. Excellent options include vintage styled storage jars, or the beautifully rounded 400ml Kilner jars, perhaps with textured glass.

Next, you need horticultural grit. This is a mix of stones and grit, essential for proper drainage. It’s inexpensive and arrives washed and lime-free. Make sure you have activated charcoal to sprinkle through your compost mixture. Activated charcoal is a brilliant bacterial buster, helping keep your glass garden a vibrant ecosystem. Make sure your household compost is peat-free. Collect some moss from your own or a kind neighbour’s garden. Last but not least is your selected foliage, perhaps chosen from our little list of helpful houseplants earlier.

To create your glass garden substrate, begin with a layer of horticultural grit followed by a thinner layer of activated charcoal. Then add your household compost. This is your growing medium and is the thickest layer. Use leafy rather than flowering foliage for your first glass garden. Blooms tend to be trickier to maintain.

Planting, watering and maintaining flourishing gardens inside large glass jars

Make a small trench, insert your desired plant and pack the soil firmly around the base. Give your plants room to grow, spacing them apart and away from the sides of your large glass jar or bottle. If the jar or bottle opening is too small for you to slip your hand inside, you can use extra-long tweezers or chopsticks.

A savvy solution to over watering is trickling water down the sides of the glass garden. This keeps fledgling foliage soil intact and channels the water to the gritty drainage system at the base. Keep the compost damp but not wet. Keep away from radiators, heaters and other sources of manufactured heat. Choose a bright airy area away from full sunshine. Remove foliage when reaches the end of its life cycle.

If you close the lid you probably won’t need to water again anytime soon, if ever. If you decide to keep an open glass garden check every few days to see if it needs a top up.

There’s no limit to how many glass gardens you can create and curate. Scatter them around the home for maximum wellbeing, favouring areas such as the home office for extra productivity. Glass gardens are a wonderful Easter gift, echoing the vibrancy of spring.