Our Top 3 Plants For Terrariums

When it comes to choosing plants for your terrarium, it can be quite easy to become overwhelmed especially if you are new to making terrariums. Just like art, everyone has a different way of expressing their creativity into a design. Maybe you prefer an explosion of colour with closely packed plants, or a simple design with a statement piece. Either way, its always important to understand the direction your terrarium will take over a long period of time as an unplanned terrarium can quickly turn to chaos if upkeep is not consistent.

Here are my top picks for terrarium plants, with a description of why and how to apply them.

Fittonia

The Fittonia is the most versatile terrarium plant we know. With its beautiful range of colours and medium size you can easily add it into any project with ease and manipulate it to suit its surroundings. To create density in a fittonia it’s as easy as cutting off one of its stems to allow two new stems to take its place. Fittonias will allow you to easily create points of interest and make a landscape pop. While we usually use the fittonia as a secondary plant to accessorize, with a strong root system and a thick stem it can be treated as a primary visual.
On top of this, every cutting can be grown as an entirely new plant. A fun project to do is keep a “terrarium” that is completely purposed to hold all of your fittonia cuttings as a miniature farm to apply to future projects or to also keep as replenishing food source for insects.

Syngonium

A syngonium is easily a statement piece in a terrarium. Its large leaves catch the eye as its greenery thickens over time. Syngoniums are a great plant to use in a terrarium because of its growth pattern, which is more of an upwards funnel so there’s not much risk of it taking over another plants spotlight.
Syngoniums come in surprising amount of colours and varieties and you’ll find one that suits you in no time. There are even varieties that affect the size of your plant (e.g pixie syngoniums).
A trick that we practice is the planting of syngonium in relation to where it will be getting its light source from. In a dome shaped terrarium, planting a syngonium furthest away from the sun will cause it to arc over the top of your terrarium, creating a canopy.
Unlike the fittonia, you will not be able to immediately plant cuttings and you may have trouble obtaining any plants from asexual reproduction as you’ll probably destroy the surrounding area inside your terrarium.

Dwarf Mondo Grass

A plant that you don’t usually see… Dwarf Mondo Grass! This was actually a plant that I found out to work really well when i first came across them. Even though mondo grass is usually stocked in the “outside” section of a garden store and can survive very dry conditions, I’ve found them to work quite well when acclimated to a terrariums conditions.
Mondo grass works really well because of its growth pattern. Mondo grass grows from the center and keeps blooming outwards with older leaves being pushed outwards. This allows your terrarium to keep its look for longer without having to trim it as often.
Dwarf Mondo grass works really well as a secondary plant in a terrarium as it can fill in spaces, creating greenery but is also inconspicuous enough to not take too much attention from points of interest.
We tend to lean closer towards plants that require little maintenance because at the end of the day, you want a product that retains its look for as long as possible. And if your terrarium does grow out of control, you won’t have to deal with irreparable damage due to leaves having a deep interlocking or loss of its original shape.
Mondo grass is also very easy to propagate by splitting offshoots under the soil. they are very easily pulled from the mother plant and will take easily.