The coffee-table Water Garden

We made this beautiful little armful of nature two weeks ago, and its still going strong and healthy, with the plants sending up shoots of new green every other day.

The Butterfly got the idea to make this little beauty one day from a website on indoor water gardens, it’s basically the same principle, but we’ve simplified it a bit and done away with a few things like activated charcoal :)

We used plants that I got from the Galiff street pet market, these are all water plants that you could probably find at nearby water bodies or fish stores :)

We used this plant called Hygrophila, we’re not sure what species it is, but it’s a water plant that grows emmersed, which means half in and half out of water, which is perfect for the garden.

We’re not sure what this plant is either, but its got long green stems with lovely tapering leaves and looks fantastic. Adds height to the overall display as well :)

We also used two bunches of Salvinia, a floating plant with trailing roots. Adds a bit of contrast to the other plants and gives cover to the fish as well.

Oh, did I mention there are fish in there too? The Butterfly had a brilliant idea to get a couple of guppies for the garden. So we ran out one evening and bought a couple of make guppies from the local fish store. They add movement to the bowl as well as get rid of mosquito larvae.

The bowl is layered with pebbles and white gravel. We used a couple of small glass tumblers to hold the plants in, filled them up with potting soil and a layer of fine white gravel so that the earth doesn’t cloud the water, and we were done! Real easy and mucking around with the water and soil was fun too :D