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Have you an old discarded fish bowl that could be made into a terrarium?

Place some bits of charcoal in the bottom and then add two to four inches of a mixture of peat moss, sand and good compost or using bagged African violet soil.

Unless you have a supply of potting soil that isn’t frozen, regular commercial planter mix is handier to use in cold February.

Plant your cuttings and keep the soil moist. If you like, place a piece of glass over the top to conserve moisture. Set the terrarium on a window sill and you will have a bowl full of bright growing plants that takes almost no time or care, for even dust will not settle on them in their private greenhouse.

Every window garden has the makings of a terrarium – bits of coleus, impatiens plants, small begonias and any other odds and ends you may be trying to get to grow. I’m proud of a mountain laurel cutting I rooted in such a terrarium last fall.

I used woods soil rich in leaf mold, and in it four small ferns are thriving and keeping the laurel company. After several months, two selaginellas have begun to grow from the woods soil. Now they have grown into a carpet of delicate green leaves.

Southerners know the red-bird cactus (Pedilanthus tithymaloides) but few other gardeners have grown it. Pedilanthus is a choice plant for any indoor planter.

Its variegated foliage grows from an unusual stem that zigzags. If you want to see its red-bird flowers, your pedilanthus will have to get cold enough to lose its leaves. The stems will remain green until spring and then the little flowers come along the stems where the leaves grew.