DIY Ikea Succulent Bowl

I have a major thing for succulents these days. I started off with a few from Lowe’s last fall, and I’m now up to 14. I may have a bit of a problem. Don’t judge me.

Houseplant experts will tell you never to buy plants from somewhere like Ikea, but I’ve had decent luck so far. They have a ton of different succulents for $2.99 each! And when I spotted this striped bowl for $6.99, inspiration struck.

I picked up three different haworthias (Note: Do not rely on the label that Ikea puts on the plants. A lot of them are wrong!) and an $0.89 bag o’ rocks (not pictured).

I was feeling ambitious, so I decided I was going to drill a drainage hole in the bottom of the bowl. I bought a 1/2″ glass and tile drill bit from Home Depot, thinking it’d be really easy.

It was not easy. It took me two hours (with frequent breaks) to get through the bottom of the bowl.

I do not recommend this. I’ve had succulents in bowls without drainage holes, and they’ve been fine. Just skip it.

But anyway, since I was being an overachieving succulent mom, I drilled through, and I also made my own succulent soil mix. Some more advice for you: Do not buy the pre-mixed stuff meant for cactuses. It is TERRIBLE. Gardening websites will usually recommend mixing regular potting soil with sand and perlite, but I skipped the sand for simplicity’s sake.

Perlite is the white styrafoam-looking stuff you see in most potting soil. You can buy a bag of it for under $5 from home improvement stores or nurseries and add more of it to your potting soil to make it drain faster. I used a mixture of half potting soil, half perlite.

After I mixed up my soil and put some in the bowl, I dug the succulents out of their pots. Side note: I found a little albino piece UNDER THE SOIL in the roots of one of them. See it in the pot all the way to the left? Isn’t it freaky?! It looks like a white lobster claw. I don’t think it’s ready for sunlight yet, so I planted it in its own little pot and am keeping it in the shade to see if it wants to live. I hope it does!

I tried to space them out enough so they’d have room to grow. Haworthias can offset (create little baby plants that will grow next to them), and I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t all end up choking each other.

Finally, I added the rocks. Something finer, like gravel, might have been a better choice, but hey, you can’t beat $0.89!

There are varying schools of thought on whether you should water succulents immediately after repotting them. I don’t have the bowl in a super sunny spot, and the days are getting shorter – plus, the potting soil was already pretty moist – so I’m not going to water mine for at least a week or two.

So that’s my DIY Ikea succulent bowl, all for under $20! (Unless you count the drill bit. Let’s not count the drill bit.)

Anyone else love succulents as much as I do? Got any advice for keeping them alive and healthy?