DIY Mini Garden - With Succulents and Cactus

Mini Garden - An artistic project to make a miniature garden, with small plants, miniature furniture, birds or animal figures.

Mini garden also can be kept in indoor or outdoor depending on the plants.

But, I recommend for direct or indirect sunlight for any type of plants for at least once in a week, to keep the plants healthy.

This is a DIY tutorial for miniature garden, which also include :

• Making organic compost at home
• Making of succulents / cactus soil mix
• making of poppy stick mini bench
• making of little hut
• making of ladder and welcome board
• collect other miniature figures
• Arrange all and give the final look.

It is a great refreshing, learn with fun project for beginners and kids

So, lets start making it...

Step 1: Making Compost at Home

There are many professional way to make organic compost, here am sharing with you how, I made my organic compost for my plants.. Its giving me good result as well.

I always collect the vegetable peels and fruits peels and allow it to dry in sunlight.

vegetable peels like potato, cucumber peels other leafy vegetables

fruits peels like banana, mango, papaya peels.

Remember I always dry them separately, as, depending upon the thickness, and moisture contains, it took different time to dry. keeping together may cause of fungal effect which we can not use any more.

Keep patience, wait till completely dried. when they are fully dried, grind it.

Keep this mixture as home made organic compost.

Banana peel compost is really very good for plants..

Now move to next step.

Step 2: Soil Mixing for Succulents and Cactus

Succulents and cactus both need well draining soil, with some nutrients.

Mixture should be very porous, so that water flows easily. I made my succulents soil mix at home with 4 ingredients

1. Coco peat
2. Sand or small stone chips
3. perlite
4. Compost

First three items can be bought from amazon, they are easily available online or any nearby gardening shop.

Compost I made at home.

I took 3 parts of coco peat, 1 part of sand / stone chip, 1 part of perlite and 1 part of compost to make succulents soil mix.

Always keep in mind that over watering is the main cause of death of succulents of cactus.

Sand or stone chips should be cleaned well before use. sand used to make soil more porous.

next is perlite, it is very light weight white colour organic soil mix. perlite retains very little water and also prevents soil compaction, that is in other way, it helps it help to drain water faster.

Organic compost, is the nutrition for the plants, to grow healthy plants, we must use compost with the soil mix,

this is the most important part of gardening.

Once the the soil mix is ready, we can proceed for the next step..

(fill the pots with this soil mix)

Step 3: Making of Bench Using Poppy Sticks

Now, I am going to make poppy stick bench.

To make this miniature, 4 sticks for sitting part, and glue this from back side with two half poppy sticks, please refer picture showing step 1 to 2,

Now, stick one stick in 90 degree angle, please refer picture showing step 3 to 4.

now attach back rest, as shown in steps 6 to 10.

To make handle, plz follow step 11 to 16. and I use 4 small pieces of poppy sticks to make legs. all parts are joined using glue gun, its fast and easy to attach. Steps 17 to 21

I use sea green acrylic paint to colour it, and put yellow dots (using yellow acrylic paint) by earbud.

Step 4: Making of Hut

To make hut, what we need?

• few bamboo sticks
• few poppy sticks
• one small container
• one 10 ml small medicine cup
• glue gun
• pencil, ruler, scissor

I have shown 15 steps , how I made the hut. kindly refer the pictures foe better idea.

• cut poppy sticks as same length of the container, paste these on the container with hot glue. (step 1 to 4)
• attach the 10 ml small container on the top of the big container (step 5)
• cut small pieces of bamboo sticks, and glue it on the top as shown in figure 6 to 9, and give a hut shape.
• paste a small rectangle and one square poppy stick as door and window.
• To colour the hut, i use yellow, brown and orange acrylic paint.
• Refer picture 10 to 15 for colouring the hut.

Step 5: Making of Ladder

For ladder, we need

• 2 bamboo sticks
• 3cm length - 4 poppy sticks
• glue gun
• acrylic paint

mark on both bamboo stick 4 equal distance point.paste the small poppy stick as shown in step 3 to 6.

now colour it with acrylic paint.

If you like, you can colour as you wish, I colour it partially, as I like it this way..

For better idea,

Please visit video :

Step 6: Collect All the Decorative and Essential Materials

We are ready with soil mix, we made few miniature furniture, now what else we need?

I use two mini wooden dolls, one mini car, one reindeer, one small cute ducking, one owl, one welcome board, two pots, pebbles or decorative stones, one small candle light, and the most important part, that plants.

choose your plants carefully.

I took one succulent, one cactus, one money plant, and few aloe-vera.

These plants, need very little water, and their growth is proper for mini garden.

by the way, for welcome board, I use one use and through bamboo spoon, cut it from half, and write "Welcome"using marker, that's it..

Step 7: Decorate Your Mini Garden

Fill the pots with soil mix.

decoration and putting plants is individuals choice, how ever I did it, i shown in steps 1 to 8.

I made two layer mini garden. one flat bigger pot and another little small with 7 inch height.

first I plant aloe-vera plants, then one by one cactus and succulent. plant money-plant on small pot,

then cover the soil with stones, i use white and light green decorative stones.

Now place the bench, put two dolls on it, place the ladder near the bench, place the hut under the money plant..

Now add one by one mini decorative figures, like car, deer, candle, duckling and owl...

Kindly refer the figures and my video for details step by step process.

And finally its done.

Step 8: The Final Look

Now my beautiful refreshing mini garden is ready..

At night, just put the candle on, it looks amazing..

Some Tips:

• Succulents can be propagate by leaf. So do not through the leaf, keep it on coco peat, do not water it for two weeks, new plants will come from the leaf, once new plants come out, start giving little water and nutrition that means can be shifted to new pot with succulent soil mix.
• I have one baby succulents from its one mature leaf, which I shown here.
• Over watering kill the succulents, so proper drainage is primary condition.
• cactus are not indoor plants, they need sunlight, airy space. do not keep in air condition room
• for mini garden use a spray bottle for watering, spray softly, do not spray water on the leaves directly, it may cause some spots which can not be removed (spots because of calcium present in water)
• succulents are very soft, handle it with care.

thanks for reading my tutorial. I have also video for the same:

This is an entry for Gardening, if you like my DIY tutorial, kindly vote for me.

Happy Gardening..