The Beauty of Wild Plants: A Terrarium with Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides and Wild Ferns

Today I want to share a terrarium project with wild local wild plants.

The materials are very basic: a wild fern and Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides (Asian pennywort or dwarf pennywort), both collected from the roadside.

To be precise, they are freshly dug from my own pots. I grow many shade-loving plants, such as begonias and various ferns, so wild ferns naturally pop up in the pots from time to time.

This pretty wild fern was one of the “weeds” I found while cleaning up my pots last month.

The Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides was something I dug up from a roadside earlier this year and have been growing directly in a pot as well.

And that’s how this little combination came to be.

Since neither Hydrocotyle nor the fern requires high humidity, I chose an open terrarium.

How It’s Made

This planting is very simple, and I’ll upload the video tutorial on my youtube channel later. Here’s a quick explanation:

Though it looks like I only added a layer of small black volcanic gravel, there is actually a shallow round glass dish (about 7cm diamater and 2cm high) buried inside—exactly the same method I use for making mini bog terrariums.

There’s nothing complicated about it:

Place the glass dish inside → add some sphagnum moss inside→ position the wild fern → cover the inside and outside with small volcanic gravel → the gravel helps secure the fern in place.

Once the gravel is in, you can pour water into the hidden glass dish.

After adding water, place the Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides inside the round glass dish.

Hydrocotyle grows extremely fast and tends to sprawl everywhere. Using a hidden dish to limit its growing area makes the whole arrangement look cleaner and more controlled.

This setup doesn’t cost much at all, but the final look is surprisingly pleasing. The planting principle behind it is simple, and anyone can try it.

I’m sharing this because I hope more people can discover the beauty of the plants around them.

If you’re willing to take a walk outside when you have free time, you’ll find that even the most unremarkable roadside weeds can be beautiful. And if this post inspires you to notice that beauty, then it has served its purpose.

To be updated