Fire Fern in a Wooden Box: A Bonsai Style Indoor Planting Idea

The main plant is: fire fern (Oxalis hedysaroides).

How I did it:

I started with a small pot of fire fern. Right in that same pot, I also inserted a piece of variegated ivy, two small friendship plants, and some common small oxalis. I placed the entire pot directly into a wooden box. The shrimp wood was inserted straight into the soil too.

It looks like a lot, and some of you might ask: is such a small pot really enough?

Yes, it is enough. None of these plants have aggressive or strong root systems.

So I simply took the whole pot—no repotting, no changes—and placed it directly into the wooden box, then buried it with fine volcanic rock. This is not because I was lazy (although there may be a tiny bit of that), but more importantly because I wanted to give the plants a boundary. I do not really like plants being packed too tightly. Even if the plants spread within the pot, or even if there are some weeds, everything will stay confined to the central area.

This wooden planter may look large, but it is actually not. It is a 17 cm square pot. And plants need space to grow outward. The fire fern and the ivy here will both trail outward. Both of these plants have a natural cascading habit.

The shrimp wood also serves as a structural support.

to be updated