Pune: Plant lovers and gardening enthusiasts have started to get their hands dirty as the weather cools down to learn some unique garden crafts like terrariums, fairy gardens and kokedama . Suitable temperatures as well as availability of raw materials like moss and small plants are driving the monsoon hobbies. Kondhwa resident Habiba Morani has started experimenting with mini gardens at home.
“The summer has been harsh, so it wasn’t possible to re-pot plants. Now that the weather is better, I have started building a small fairy garden with plants that I collected over the last few months,” she said. Terrarium expert Sagar Dave, who has conducted around 40 terrarium-making workshops, said that monsoon ticks all the right boxes to sit back and create little jungles in jars at home.
“Terrariums, especially closed ones, are beautiful. These are scientific microcosms at the same time. Moss is abundant in the tropics and becomes commonplace here in the subtropics during monsoon,” he said.
Garden crafts don’t require people to make special purchases. One can find soil, small plants, moss, stones, etc, in and around wherever they are. “My son has been given a school assignment to create a mini plant ecosystem.
He has been roaming around our society looking for gravel, tiny plants and moss that he can put into the terrarium,” said Kishori Nandkumar, a resident of Sus. Kokedama artist Vaishali Kasture held a workshop recently. Kokedama is the Japanese art of growing pl.