Cactus in a Bowl

Cactus as an ornamental plants is rather new to me. I haven't been paying much attention to it until a time when I saw this beautiful cactus display in a glass container which looked like a miniature green house at either a gift shop or a garden exhibition. They were beautiful! And that's about the interest level that I have in these cactuses.

Ok, so I got this glass bowl from the florist during the weekend, and the small cactus plant from Cameron Highlands in June. If I'm not mistaken, all the eight cactus costs about Rm10 and the stand is Rm5. Its a trial buy, to see if this cactus plants from a cold climate could survive here. And they turn out to be okay.

Now I'm ready for the next step. So I'm going to transfer all the small cactus plants into the glas fish bowl.

I start by filling up the bottom of the bowl with small white stones. I see some ready made ones even make it colourful with green or orange, but in this case I prefer whites.

Then I plan on the layout of the plants in the bowl, and rearranging it to the most suitable positions pleasing to the eyes.

Empty the pots and arrange the plants according to plan. At this stage, we can still change the positions.

Fill the bowl up with the soil to cover the neck of the plants.

Add some decorative pebble stones to make it look 'natural' and artisitic.

There! Now it looks like a miniature desert. The one I saw at the shops have all the black soil covered with another layer of white stones, but I kind of like this look. I may or may not buy more stones to do this. :)

Next step would be maintenance. Here are some tips online.

Cactus plant care

Potting
Cactus should be placed under adequate sunlight.
They should be sowed in pots having a good drainage system.
Remove one inch of soil form the top. Replace it with gravel.
The soil should be a mixture of sand, peat and perlite.
Cactus growing vertically should be sowed in container whose diameter is half the height of the plant.
Cacti that are growing breadth wise should be grown on containers, which are having 2 inches of diameter extra than the plant.
Recently sowed or repotted plants have more chances of getting rot.
The soil should be dry enough while the sowing or repotting is been done. Watering should be done after a week so that the roots are healed within the time.

And lastly, a word of advice from a non-expert.

Hello...! Happy cactussing! Meow, meow!