August Container Gardening Recipe 2025
Aqua Bloom
A Living Glass Garden You’ll Fall in Love With
This Sunset Succulent Bowl is a heat-loving, low-maintenance container recipe that’s as tough as it is beautiful. Planted in a shallow dish and topped with gravel, this mix of sculptural succulents thrives in summer sun and brings desert-inspired style to your patio or tabletop.
1. Glass Container — Any large, clear glass vessel will do—thrifted jars, apothecary containers, or oversized vases. Transparency allows light in and gives you a front-row view of your aquatic ecosystem.
2. SOL Soils – Saharan Gold — This specialty substrate is designed for planted aquariums and provides essential nutrients while anchoring aquatic roots. Its earthy golden color also adds natural beauty to your jar.
3. Found Rocks — Beachcombed stones or river rocks give structure, personality, and provide surface area for beneficial bacteria. Bonus: snails love to climb them!
4. Aquatic Plants — Bundles of oxygenating aquatic plants help clean the water while creating a habitat for fish and snails. These plants absorb fish waste and release oxygen—essential for a thriving aqua garden.
5. Pond Water or Dechlorinated Water — Use established pond water or tap water that has been treated with dechlorinator. This prevents harm to fish and preserves the balance of the ecosystem.
6. Guppies — Colorful and hardy, guppies are ideal for small, filter-free aqua gardens. Just a few will help maintain the symbiosis between animals and plants.
7. Aquatic Snails — Ramshorn or bladder snails are natural cleaners, keeping glass and rocks free of algae and debris. Limit to 1–2 per jar to avoid overpopulation.
8. Duckweed — A floating plant that rapidly reproduces, duckweed provides cover for guppies, reduces algae growth, and completes the natural filtration process. Scoop out a little as needed to maintain light and airflow.
Check out the video above for step-by-step instructions.
Bring the beauty of water gardening indoors with this month’s Aqua Bloom container recipe. Simple to create, easy to maintain, and endlessly fascinating to watch, an aqua garden is the perfect blend of nature and creativity. Stop by the Garden Center to see our examples, pick up everything you need, and let us help you bring your own living water garden to life!
PRO TIP: Mind the Duckweed
Keep duckweed at about half the water’s surface.
Too much will block light from reaching your plants and fish.
What Is an Aqua Garden?
An aqua garden is a miniature, enclosed aquatic ecosystem—essentially a low-tech aquarium-meets-terrarium. It’s built inside a glass container and designed to function without a filter, relying instead on a natural symbiotic relationship between the plants and the aquatic animals.
Here’s how it works:
- The fish (we recommend guppies) produce waste,
- The plants use that waste as nutrients,
- The plants also oxygenate the water,
- And snails help clean up algae and excess organic material.
With the right balance, this little ecosystem requires only occasional maintenance—just top off the water, feed the fish sparingly, and trim the plants as needed.
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