How To Make A Dish Garden Everyone Will Love

Even if you don’t have a garden outdoors, you can still have one indoors. Dish gardens have been popular for years and make great gifts for homes and offices. They are really very simple to put together and are great projects to do with kids, especially to introduce them to gardening. Here’s how to make a dish garden everyone will love.

The plant line up above features: a neanthe bella palm, dieffenbachia, variegated ficus pumila, baby’s tears and finally a spathiphyllum. These are all 2″ plants because the footed glass bowl I used was neither deep or all that big. If you have a larger container then by all means use larger plants.

Most often dish gardens sold in the retail trade are planted with plants that aren’t compatible in regards to growing conditions. High light plants are planted with low light plants and the dish garden just isn’t meant to survive for the long run. If you want yours to last as long as possible, then pay attention to the requirements of the plants.

Some Of Our General Houseplant Guides For Your Reference:

Here I am in my garage making the dish garden step by step:

All the steps to making a dish garden are in the video here are a few things to point out:

* I used potting soil for this kind of a dish garden. I previously made a little cactus garden & for that used succulent & cactus mix.

* I added my usual worm castings as an amendment.

* Many dish garden containers don’t have drainage. I put in a layer of gravel 1st before putting in the soil & plants.

You could also use charcoal which also serves to “sweeten” the soil.

I really look like I’m concentrating in this pic!

* The container choice is endless. I’ve used a salad bowl as well as an old truck that belonged to my dad when her was a kid.

* I slightly angle the plants around the edges to face out. That way they don’t all grow like soldiers at attention straight up.

* Water the plants before planting & water the garden after planting.

* Be careful not to over or under water your dish garden. It can be tricky with these to find that fine line between too much & too little.

* You can use some blooming plants if you’d like. Good choices are kalanchoes, african violets, begonias, bromeliads & mums.

At the end comes the real fun – adding the adornments. I used driftwood, glass chips, polished stones and a little frog. Use whatever catches your fancy. Whether it’s for you or you’re giving it as a gift, it’s bound to be a hit. Enjoy!

Happy gardening,

Nell

6 Comments

Suzie Sharpe (Charles) says:
01/04/2017 at 5:41 am
Hi Nell, i love this. Hope you had a lovely Xmas and a fantastic New Yr. Sending ?? to u from Australia xo???
Nell says:
01/05/2017 at 10:00 am
Hi Suzie – Happy New Year to you& thank you! I’ve enjoyed my time off but now it’s time to get back to work. Hugs from the Arizona desert, Nell
light says:
07/21/2018 at 12:58 pm
Can you please help me to decide what kind of dish garden i should make for a school project? i need tips because im not really good with plants, can you elaborate 4-5 plants that will go well together
Nell Foster says:
08/21/2018 at 9:23 pm
Hi – It depends on the light it’ll be growing in. Fleshy succulents go together well as do cacti. A mixture of Peperomias (& there are quite a different varieties of them) would do it. Aglaonemas, dracaenas, pothos & neanthebella palms are another. Nell