Hi, Amorton. Okay, a personal #1 beginner's and lifelong gardener's plant for sunnier areas: Salvia guarnitica, species name, but also known as "anise sage," "that blue thing," etc. Available at almost all nurseries these days because it's so wonderful. A deciduous perennial that grows up spring after spring, spreads nicely over time, but not obnoxiously, and brings continual rewards for very little effort. You can look it up and read about it. There are named selections, 'Black 'n Blue,' etc., but the species is excellent (no matter which, you'll end up sharing with visitors who want a start). It's a deciduous perennial plant, so will live on in your garden year after year, coming back each spring with nice green foliage and then spikes of little deep true-blue flowers from late spring to hard frost in the autumn. It grows about 3-4 feet over the summer. It makes a wonderful supporting player for virtually anything else in the garden and is a great favorite of hummingbirds. If you have it in your garden, you can count on a hummer moving in and defending that territory against all comers. It can be tucked behind lower plants, in front of tall ones, between still others (like behind those daylilies and alongside roses). It's virtually problem-free but, in this climate, it'll look better later in the summer if you now and then pinch off the dead flower stems (very unobtrusive if you don't) plus a few of the leaves below. That'll keep it nice and full, growing new leafy spikes up from below. Your fingers and a glass of wine or sweet tea as you stroll around after dinner are all you need for this. :)

You need to find a good spot for the garden. It needs full sun and good drainage and at least a six inch depth of decent soil. Clay loam can be amended; impenetrable clay subsoil is usually hopeless, and needs to be removed and replaced with good topsoil. Or you can pile topsoil on top of it. Your garden needs a source of water. If it's pretty far away from your outside spigot, you will need to buy some hose. If there are big trees next to the garden, they will suck up ALL of your water and fertilizer. I'm not exaggerating. So no big trees near the garden. You will have to prepare the soil. This isn't a good time. It needs to dry out somewhat before you can till or dig. So you will need to be patient. If you have some plastic film, clear or black, you can put it over the area where the garden is going to be, and it will help the soil to dry out earlier. If you use black plastic, it will also kill the weeds and grass. The next step is to improve the soil. If you don't do this, your crops aren't going to grow well, and weeding is going to be miserable, especially if you have dense clay. I always do the same thing when I'm making a new garden: I till in about one inch of sand and one inch of organic material, such as compost or rotted bark, along with a generous sprinkling of lime and superphosphate. The lime corrects the soil acidity (our soils here are always acid, as far as I know). You will notice that the dollar bills are starting to flow now, right? If you want a successful garden, you have to make an up-front investment. If you don't do it right, you will end up like many (most?) new gardeners: with a garden full of weeds, and no desire to continue. You will definitely not save money the first year, because of the up-front costs. You will get the investment back over several years of gardening, assuming you get pretty good at it. Are you sure you want to do this? Most people badly underestimate the amount of work involved. Also, are you in town or in the country? If in the country, how are you going to keep the bunnies, raccoons and deer out of your garden? More money. Slugs may well be your worst enemy. You will have to terminate them with extreme prejudice. Choose your weapon: bait, scissors, stale beer? Bait works best, but has negatives. So let's say you've improved your soil, and it's late May, and time to start planting. Are you going to grow from seed, or from plants? Since you didn't grow your own plants, you will have to buy them. I recommend that you do everything on a small scale the first year, until you learn the necessary skills. Try some lettuce and tomato plants, and some green bean, radish, pea and red beet seeds. You will need support for the tomatoes and peas. I use big tomato cages, the ones you find at real nurseries, not the itty-bitty ones at Home Depot. If your soil is well prepared and at least 8 inches deep, try some carrots. I wouldn't try peppers, melons, or eggplant; they're likely to fail for a novice. The cabbage family is not hard to grow, but tends to have bug and worm problems. Try some easy flower seeds, like marigold, zinnia, and sunflower. Kids love Mammoth sunflowers; they get about 9 feet tall. And it's fun to watch the blue jays fight over the seeds in the fall. You will need fertilizer. The easiest is to buy some balanced fertilizer such as 5-10-10 or 16-16-16, and forget about doing a soil test. If you find out in a year or so that you are really cut out for gardening, that might be a good time to get a soil test done. There are two ways to use fertilizer. You can mix a teaspoonful into the soil where you are going to place a plant; or you can apply it to the surface around existing plants, and let your irrigation water wash it down to the roots. As soon as you start fertilizing and watering, your new garden is going to explode with weed growth. You must control them when they're small, or your garden will be lost. This is when you will be grateful for the sand and compost. The soil will be loose and workable, and it will be easy to pull the weeds. The good news is that next year and the year after that, the weed situation won't be nearly as bad. However, if you let the weeds go to seed, your garden will be a weed nursery forever. You must not let this happen. There are lots of learning experiences along the way, like learning to identify pests and how to control them. The best way to learn is to find a really good gardener in your neighborhood. They are getting rare. Let them teach you. Next best is Gardenweb. Approach gardening books and mass-media garden gurus with skepticism. There's a lot of BS out there. And ignore advertising. Don't buy anything that says "miracle" on it, or that costs a lot of money. Check with your local expert first, or ask on this forum. That's all I know.

Well, it's probably a 10 gallon, since that is the standard 'small fishtank'. Just to make sure, can you measure it and give the dimentions in inches? Or figure it out yourself, by doing length x width x height (all in inches), and then divide by 231. The answer you get is the number of gallons. Good choice on removing the cactus, as they are totally the wrong choice for a terrarium, especially one that is using potting soil and is probably in low light. Potting soil is fine, but it would be better if you could add some extra perlite to it to increase soil aeration. And it only needs to be 2-3" deep. I would vary the height to make it more interesting. For example, you could make the back higher than the front, or make it slope to one side. For plant suggestions, since this is a classroom terrarium that will probably not get a lot of maintenance, I'd stick to plants that stay naturally small, and will not need constant trimming to stay in check. A mini African Violet would be a good choice if it doesn't stay too moist. The glass cover should allow a little crack to let air in and excessive heat out. A mini fern like 'Fluffy Ruffles' would also be good (all other ferns will get WAY to big in a year or less). Selaginella kraussiana or uncinata (club moss) would make a good groundcover. I like the 'aurea' (golden) version of S. kraussiana better than the regular green, because it really helps brighten things up in the terrarium. Some ferns may naturally start to grow in the terrarium just from spores in the potting soil, and they can be left, as they will take a very long time to gain any real size, and depending on the species, may never grow large. You could also add a neat piece of driftwood or some nice rocks to the landscaping. An air plant (tillandsia) could be attached to the driftwood. Just make sure you pick one that enjoys more moisture (they appear more green, others appear more silver) and stays small. T. stricta or T. ionatha might be a good choice. Hmmmmmm. . . . fittonia is great for low light, but is a rampant grower, as is Ficus pumila. . . same deal with english ivy and wandering jew. . . You could plant the smallest Neanthe Bella palm that you can find. It will be good for a few years before it outgrows the tank. A small cryptanthus might be good, but they will revert to plain green if not given enough light, and will form a large, spreading clump if happy, so maybe not the best choice. DON'T plant an aluminium plant or polka-dot plant. They seem to be perfect terrarium plants because of their small leaves and slower growth habit, but they rot and drop their leaves easily in that much humidity. If you don't mind spending some more money, and you like Rob's Violets anyways, you could place an order with them. They carry many mini plants. Check the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: Rob's

Unfortunately, truth be told, there really aren't any for a closed terr. This question comes up every so often -- not surprising as there are some neat cacti and succulents out there. That being the case, rather than simply omit any reference to desert terr, it seemed wise to address this issue. Cacti as a whole do not make good terr inhabitants. The main problem is moisture. Most cacti and many succulents come from extremely arid environments. The terrarium is just the opposite - the whole idea is to maintain humidity. Faced with the higher humidity & stagnant air, cacti and many succulents do very poorly and soon suffer from fungal/bacterial problems. Light is another problem. Most require very high light levels. But in the close confines of a terr, this results in high temps that would "cook" them. Now an open terrarium would be a different situation. It would likely be very challenging but might be possible. As people experiment with plants for such a terr, I hope they will let me know as to their successes and failures. Some possible candidate plants to experiemnt with if one does decide to attempt an open terr/desertarium might be: sago palms (while they are small, of course) Peperomias Jade plants