Garden Art: Create Your Own Beautiful Kokedama

1. Intro - Create your own Kokedama: Hi, everyone. My name's Kelly Newbury. And today I'm here to teach you how to make coca Dhamma. For the last 14 years, I've been living in apartments, which means I'm really passionate about gardening and small spaces and bring the outdoors in coca Dahmer's air a really great way to bring us peace of nature into your home. Plus, they look beautiful. You might be wondering, What is a Coca Dhamma? Well, basically, the direct translation of the word is most ball. So this is one of Kodama looks like it's an ancient Japanese art form, and it's quite similar to Bonzai in that the root system is restrained with soil moss and then twine. And this is what you end up with as your results. If you'd like to make your very own coca Dhamma today, come along and let's get started. 2. Materials you'll need: So before we get started creating out Erica Dhamma, it's a good idea to have all of your material set out and any easy reach. We get our hands really dirty so you don't want to rummaging around trying to find what you need. So let's run through the list of materials that you'll need to make your very own cook Dhamma. First off, you need to select what sort of plant you're going to use today. I'm going to use a succulent. These work really well in coca dramas they lost, and they really easy to take care of. There's a bunch of different types of plants that you can use for coca damages. You can use other types of succulents like Jade's. You can use ivy funds. Cactus people even use things like herbs. So basically it's a bit of trial and error. Whatever you think's going to look best in your home, you can generally turn it into a drama. Next up. We need a really good sort of soil mix, so so to make that we use Pete. This is paint that I've already broken up and put out. It actually looks like this to begin with It's a brick and Pete. It earned the cost about $2.50 so it's worth taking the time to grab it. It goes up to nine later, so you'll need a bit of space to store it. But it's well worth adding it to the mix, as it means only to water your crooked Dimas less frequently. I think that you need to select the soil that you as I'm using a succulent for my plan. I'm using a premium succulent makes. I suggest you use whatever sort of soil is relevant to the plant. There's some really good food mixes out there. Same with cactus. The ratio of soil to Pete is about 7 to 3 now. It's not science. It's just a rough sort of amount that you'll name. Then we'll also need to be adding some water to our soil mix. Now we do this to make the consistency nice and wet and muddy. This will help us hold the bowl shape of our coca Dhamma. So this is the soil mix, and this is what will be using for Africa dominance. Next up, we've got asked Bagna Moss. Now this comes compressed really tightly in a brick similar to the Pete, and then you'll separate it all out, and you can also add if you find it's really dry at a little bit of water to keep it dance . You'll need cotton to secure the sphagnum moss to the plant and the soil I recommend using a nice natural five are organic. Impossible because the plants respond better to that. Try not to use anything synthetic. Also, don't worry. If it gets dirty, it's going to be covered anyway. You'll need some twine that will wrap around our planet, so people nice sort of jute twine. You can get this from most nurseries or hardware stores, and if you want to add decoration at the end, we've got different colored types of twine, so you can really just pick what sort of color you'd like and go from there. Make sure you've got your scissors on hand, because we will be cutting things along the way. So that's everything you're going to need to create your coca dhamma. Now you might be wondering where to get all of these materials. One of the best places to check is your mom's garden shed. Their really common materials, so you will find them lying around in people shits. Otherwise, you can head down to your local nursery or hardware store. They'll stock everything that we've talked about today. All right, now we've got allow materials ready to go. Let's jump in and create alpaca Dhamma. 3. Creating a soil ball: All right, everyone, let's get cracking. Creating outcoached. Dhamma. So to get started, what we're going to do is create that fall off soil. First thing we need to do is to prepare our plant. Basically, to do this, loosened soil by squeezing gently around the edge of the plant and tip it upside down. This one has quite loose soil. As you can see a lot of the plans that you get from your local nursery, they'll be really firmly packed. So if that's the case, what you'll need to do is loosen off the soil so that the brute start to look like this. The reason that we do that is to a right the route, so that they do really well in our crackdown mobile. You can see that by adding this extra soil here, trust soil mix. It's probably going to be true dry, so we will need to add a bit more water. We'll do that now, and as we go along, you can animal water as needed. Okay, so the next step is to start preparing now. Bull soil. Basically, what we do is we need to get it into the palm of one of our hands. What we need to do here is now gently place out, plant onto our soil, and then we do the same on the other hand. Now I did warn you that we were going to be getting dirty. As you can see, when I press those two things together, my soil is holding its shape. If you're finding that you're soils old just dropping down, you probably need to add a little bit more water because this will help its stock to hold its shape. So what we're going to do is we're going to keep adding more bits of soil until you can't see any little roots coming out peeking out. This is really important because we want to make sure that the roots are protected by the soil, so keep adding soil and keep creating this circular round shape. The other thing I'll say is, don't get too caught up on making a perfect fool, because we've got time to do that down the track. When we add out twine, the other thing to remember is thinking about how big you want your soil bowl to bay. So as you can see, we've got a bit of a rough soil bowl here, and it's quite so. This is out plant in a bowl of soil. The next step is to stop securing the moss. 4. Securing moss: Okay, now we're ready to add this Magnum lost 12 full of soil. The reason we do this is because it will help your plant thrive. Basically, adding this magnum moss will help border over time, so it means that there's less maintenance and care required. Okay, so let's jump in. We basically, as I said at the start, your sphagnum moss will start out really dry. So if you've got too many really light fluffy, it's just add a little bit off water to damp and those floppy it's again. Don't worry if you go too heavy handed with the water, because we can always bring it out. You don't need toe. Also worry about getting the sphagnum most dirty. It's going to get dirty, and that's okay. So next up, we need to get out a little bit of sphagnum moss. If you're just starting out, I recommend that you use a small amount because it's just a little bit easier to manage but going to do exactly the same thing we did with soil. We've got the sphagnum moss in one hand, and then we transfer the bowl of soil across with that sphagnum moss. Now he is where it turns into a bit of a juggling act. You'll need to get your caution, which you should have on hand and a pro tip. Make sure you've got the end easy to find. It's very hard to find Cotton ends with very dirty hands and basically what we're going to do. It's secure that end bit of cotton and stop to wrap it around your plant and secure that moss around the edge off the soil. If you find it easier, you can cut lights off, cotton toe work with. I personally prefer to work with just the one long bit. So as you can see, we've now secured that. Don't worry if you lose a bit of soil along the way, as long as it's not a major piece on that, there's no roots sticking out. So then we move on to the next little bit of sphagnum moss in your other hand. And like I said, it can be a little bit of a juggling act, but it certainly gets easier as you go along. So again, we are now securing the mosque without cotton for the first sort of layer off mosque. Generally do it quite loosely just because it's easier to manage rather than doing it really tight. Basically, as the end result, we want to make sure there's no soil visible and that all of the sphagnum moss is covering out out full of soil. The other thing I'll say is most of this will get covered by twine. So it doesn't matter if it doesn't look beautiful, because this is not the end result. So there's no it's off soil peeking through. Okay, so we've got most about Moss executed now, which is great. Another thing to check is around the top of your plant. So, as you can say, there's still a little bit of soil showing. Then it's a spot that's easy to miss because we're generally focusing around the edge. So do you. Make sure you get this Magnum most right up close to the top of your plant because, like I said, we really don't want any soil showing anywhere with the plant. Now that you've got the most secured, you need to do a really tight layer off cotton around it, so you can see I'm really pulling this bagna moss tightly, and you might even have a little bit of water creep at the bottom. If you've got five damn, that's fine. It's nothing to worry about. Just make sure that you're securing your sphagnum moss really tightly, and now you can sort of start to see the ball form really take shape. So if you notice that your bowl is maybe more of a pear shape or a lemon shape, you can feel free to add bits of extra moss to keep it really circular. One thing I'll say with Coca, Dominus, is that they're really earthy type of way to display your plans. They're not meant to be perfect. So don't get caught up on creating the perfect ball, especially when you're starting, because I actually think it gives them a bit of character. Oh, and I just found a little bit more dirt that's exposed, so just make sure I add some more. Some most bagna, most there to really cover it off. And when you're done, just really rip off your piece of cotton. And there is your Kirk Adomah covered in sphagnum moss 5. Wrapping your twine: Okay, So what we want to do now is that we've got our suitable covered in moss. We're going to take out wine and stopped cover up the most. Again. I like to just use the one big lot of twine other people prefer to cut off section. So it's really up to you how you prefer to work to get started. Use your thumb to secure that twine, and you just stop wrapping it around your Kirk Adomah. Now you will start to notice water seeping out because you need to do this really, really tightly or you'll run the risk of it unraveling down the track. As we go, you'll see big bits bulging out. Try and bring those in using the twine. Okay, so as you can see, we've really started to cover up the mosque. Now there's generally true different ways that people like. They're crooked dominance. They either liked to leave some of the mosque exposed like we have here that's more of an earthy and organic look, and some people really like that. So if that's a look you're going for, you can cut the twine and secure it. Now what? I'm going to do today, though, is completely cover the mosque to give you that other final look. So we'll just continue now, rapping along until there's no moss visible. So this does take a little while. And the thing that I will say again and again is that you've got to make sure it's really time. And if you see that others like bits of string that already wrapped on so tight, then you need to go over them again until they are really, really tired. Yes, so we need to wrap this final piece of twine really tight and then tie it off. And what we're looking to do is find a piece of twine that's actually really, really tight. So I found one here. I can barely move it, so I need to thread this my last final piece through, which would be a little bit fatally thread it through underneath that. Like I said, you've got to make sure you pick a really tight one to do this because this is how you're securing your whole coca Dhamma so you can see there that I've got that through, and we're just going to tie it off in a knot This is just one of those really simple knots . You can get a bit fancy with your not work down the track. And as you can see, that's now secured in. So you can also tuck that in under another one if you don't like them not being exposed. So there we go. I've just talked that in and now you can sort of barely see it. What we've got here is out Finished twine. Coca Dhamma. So the next step will be talking about how we can display our broke Odom is 6. Displaying your Kokedama: So now we're going to cover off the two main ways you display your pro dharma first way, and one of the most common ways is to have it seated in on just sitting as a display. So many people will use some sort of dish to displayed in because they can leake off a little bit of water and you're finding that it's not really sitting exactly how you want it . You can always press it down quite firmly against your table bench to sort of create a nice flat surface. But it to sit on like this. Personally, I display most of my plants seated. I think they look really cute like this, and you can use all sorts of different dishes to display them. The other way to display your Kirk Adomah is to hang it, so we'll cover that now hang it. What we need to do is figure out roughly how hi you'll need to hang it. So get the amount of string, for example, if you want your that's probably that might be a little bit too long. If you want your coca down Dhamma to sort of hang it that height that but also cut a little bit extra for the notting to hang out. Crooked Dominus. There's two ways that you can do it. You can either have the not from the one place which will cause you're broke odometer hanging sideways like this. Otherwise, you can tie it off from a this side so that it will hang sitting up like this, similar to the way that we have displayed it when you said it in a dish. So those are your two options. I figure out what you want to do first. The next step is then to find a really tight piece of string that's very close to the top of your plant, so this could be a bit of a challenge, but you need to make sure it's nice and tight. Here we go. I found a good one here. It's really hard to move, and this is also one of the parts of creating coca Dhamma that I find most difficult. You can fold over your piece of twine to make it a bit easier to push it under that really type piece of strength. The tricky thing is, of course, you don't want to be damaging the leaves of your plants. So you need to be quite careful while you do this. They go once you've got it through you'll not it off the same way that we have done to end the twine last time. So no, it off really nice and tightly. And then you can talk this other bit under another pace to try and hide the end. So there we go with but the first not. And as I said, we can have it hanging off to the side or sitting upright. I think in this instance I'm going to hang mine to the side like this. So again, you've got another opportunity to measure and make sure you've got it at the right height for wherever you'll be hanging it. In this instance, I think that all thing mine from the hook up there so I can measure roughly how high I want to sit. I think this is a sort of fight that I'm looking for, so I'll take the end and what I'll do is not it under another piece of strings and not that same one. We don't want all the way on the same piece of twine but one that's very close to it. You might need toe dig a little bit deeper to find one. And again, it's quite tricky because, like I said, it's gonna be a nice tight one. So I threaded that true, one of the lower ones. Then and again, I will tie it off using that same not as before. Really highly. Once that's done, you can find another piece of thread to just tuck that on, so it's not overly visible. You can cut it all 50 if you've got a really long little tail there. But make sure you do leave a little bit tuck like so so you can see they're not unfortunately, so if you don't like that, you might need to try and find a deeper one to tie it off. And then they got out hanging coca Dhamma 7. Decorating your Kokedama: now that we've got out coca Dhamma ready to be displayed, the final step in this process is to add a bit of college twice. Now. You certainly don't have to do this. If you prefer the rustic, more natural look, then by all means, just keep it to that natural one. Otherwise, you can add bright colored twine, which will do now next up. You need to select the colored twine that you'd like to use to decorate your cargo. Dhamma Purple's my favorite color, so that's what I'll be using today. I like to work from the one school of twine. You can get this stuff from your local, have a dash, restore fabric stores or even some hardware and nurseries to get started again. We're doing the same thing we've done before. We're just dying to wrap the twine around the Coca Dhamma and securing off that beginning bit. It can be a bit tricky now that we've got this extra bit that were hanging it from. So if you rather you can do this in the opposite order and decorate before you decide how you want to display it now it's really up to you. How much of a decoration you add to your Kirka dhamma. You can be very sparing and just have a few bits of twine coming through. Or you can make the color more, uh, more of the focus and really go quite heavy with the amount of twine you add. What you do want to try and achieve is sort of a similar amount of twine across colored twine, I should say across the whole crooked Dhamma. Now, if you want to get fancy, you can do all sorts of different patterns. They take a bit of practice. That's the sort of look I want to go for today, sort of, um, a nice amount of colored verse. Natural twine. Like I said, you can grow heavy and you can use a lot more color twine or a lot less if you want. It's exactly the same as what we've done previously. We will cut it all off and tie it on to one of the habits of twine. You'll probably find it easier to secure this the college twine rather than the natural line, as it's a bit softer as this doesn't actually have any weight on it. You can just tuck it under rather than tying. And not if you prefer. So there we have our hanging colored twine. Um, and our coca Dhamma is finished. So I hope you've been following along at home, and you've now got your own coca Dhamma. Make sure you share a photo in the project gallery. I'd love to see all of your beautiful creations, especially if you want to try out different patterns. Make sure you share those photos, too. Next up will be covering off the care for your new coca Dhamma. 8. Caring for your Kokedama: now we've all created out beautiful coca. Dom is it's time to make sure we know how to care for them. Luckily, there are pretty low man maintenance style off displaying a plan, so not too much of it is required. How frequently you water your plan does depend on the type of plan that you use. So I've attached a resource to the class that outlines how frequently you'll need to water the plants, depending on which sort of plant you use. Okay, so now onto actually watering the plants One way is if you have a firm, so this doesn't work for succulents off a cactus. But if you have a phone that you views, you can simply mr a few times to keep him nice and voice. If you've used a cactus or succulent, the best way to water your plant is to give it a little box. So use a ball of water and simply dunk your plant in for approximately 20 to 30 minutes. So as we've just used very damp materials to create our saddamism harm, you won't need to order yours for at least a week. So you certainly want need to order today. The thing about coca Dom is is that that Moss that we've added in that retains a lot of moisture. So you'll start to know that your cracker diamond needs of water if you pick it up. And it feels really lot if it feels really heavy than its don't got a lot of moisture in the soil and the sphagnum moss, so you don't need to order is frequently. Thanks so much for joining me today and learning how to create your own coca Dhamma and care for. I'm really looking forward to seeing the pictures of your own project, so make sure you upload those once you completed the project. Thanks again, guys. And if you've got any questions about Coca dollars, let me know.