DIY: Succulent Wine Cork Planter

This simple project is a great way to display the tiny succulent off-sets your plants may create and can sometimes accidentally break off. Groupings of them can be a little gallery of your houseplant collection that live at a second location like your office or vacation home. They also make great gifts.

Materials:

Wine corks
Drill with 1/4-inch drill bit or larger
Clamp or vise
Cactus soil mix
Succulents

Steps:

1. Place cork in a vise or clamp and then drill a hole in the center of the top of the cork--going about half-way down the length. Blow out the crumbled cork and widen the hole as you wish, being careful not to break through the side of the cork.
2. Decorate the cork. This is an optional step, but now would be the time to paint it or glue on a magnet and let that dry before moving on to the next step. 
3. Fill the hole with a bit of the cactus soil mix. Tapping it down. 
4. Place your tiny succulent into the hole and fill in more soil around it.
5. You can then embellish the planters as you like. For instance, you can add a bit of moss near the succulent's stem or wrap the cork in decorative floral wire.

Tips:

• The wine corks need to be real (natural) cork. Many now are synthetic and are not suitable for this project.
• Drill more corks than you think you'll need. Some will crumble or crack on you. It may also take a few trial corks to get the hang of using the drill.
• Use a cactus soil mix --not regular potting soil or garden soil. The cactus mix is much lighter than other soils and is better for the succulent.
• A toothpick or skewer is a useful tool for guiding the succulents roots into the hole.

Care:

Ideally, place the cork with succulent in a south-facing window, but they can survive in lower light situations. The most important thing is to water them sparingly -- meaning hardly ever. When the plant starts to outgrow the cork, you can transplant the succulent to a bigger pot and reuse or recycle the cork planter.

This is a monthly blog series on DIY projects for the beginning home gardener. Look for the other installments in this DIY blog series by putting "DIY" in the search box here at washingtongardener.blogspot.com.