Kokodama and Wabi Kusa Balls – Roll up your soil of choice into a ball, you’ll need to wet it in order for it to stick together. As for soil, organic potting mix combined with a little clay such as daltons aquatic mix will work well. a 70:40 potting mix to aquatic mix ratio is good. The clay will cause the potting mix to stick together better when wet! Then cover it in wet sphagnum moss, followed by coconut coir on top. Finally wrap it in twine or fishing line. (fishing line if you are submersing it in your aquarium) Note: if you are putting a plant into this display that already has roots like a sword plant for example then you will need to put the plant into the ball before you cover it and wrap it up. Also if you are attaching some moss to your ball be sure to put this thinly underneath the twine or fishing line so it is close to moisture and will grow through. Once you’re done, simply use some long planting tweezers or a knitting needle to make holes in your ball for the stems to go into. I have found it is easier to make the hole first and hold the stem with your fingers to insert into the ball as opposed to holding the stem with the tweezers. The stems are delicate so there should be no resistance when inserting them into the holes you’ve made. It’s easier to judge if there is any resistance or not if you are inserting them by holding the stems instead of using the tweezers to hold the stems. In some instances it might be easier to use the tweezers to hold the stems but you can judge this yourself. It will take you some practice to get the hang of this! Don’t give up!!! TIP: Make sure your stems are not too long! A couple cm of leaves above the hole is a sufficient length. The reason this works better is because the plant doesn’t have to deliver moisture very far as this will be difficult for the stem in the beginning stages due to not having a root system yet.
Terrarium – Place some sand or stones in your terrarium bowl, approximately 3-5cm worth of stones of sand. Then put your soil of choice on top (potting mix is fine), then cap it with some more stones or sand. the reason you put stones down first is to add drainage in your bowl so the soil doesn’t turn into an anaerobic lump. Simply plant your stems using tweezers or just poke them in. It doesn’t matter how far down the stems go, as long as they are far down enough to get some moisture when you water your terrarium. Note: If you are using moss also, put some sphagnum moss down on top of the soil then put your moss on top of the sphagnum. Moss is one of those plants that loves a wet environment and as long as it has access to some moisture it will be okay and grow nicely. Sphagnum moss is amazing at retaining water and will be perfect for your moss to live on top of.
Refer to care instructions once made!
If you are submersing your ball then contact us for some of out aquarium fish safe soil that we sell to our customers who are making their own from scratch. Will not create algae, contains a slow release fertiliser inside and is 100% safe too fish and all aquatic life.
- aquaticplants.co.nz
- 027 630 9994
- sales@aquaticplants.co.nz