I think I might have killed everything :( (pic heavy)

[AshleyN]

Hi! I just joined today in hopes to get some help! I am very new to plants.

I decided to go with succulents and air plants because I keep reading how easy they are to take care of... and got a little crazy the past week or so, picking up plants here and there. I got some from IKEA, Walmart and a local nursery. I want to make an indoor window garden for my new studio window... but I think I might have done everything wrong!

Not only do I really not know what most of these are, they are also mostly in non-draining pots or planters. I also had to pull apart root balls to separate some of the plants. I have drilled holes in the fancy tin "boat" that is holding the albuca spiralis (what it was sold to me as) and the metal trays that are attached to each other are holding various succulents, and a swampy spiral grass (can not remember the names of those) I drilled holes in the trays that are holding the succulents and left the water loving plant trays in tact. I have watched videos on drilling holes into clay/ceramic pots with a diamond drill bit, but I am afraid of breaking them!

They are planted in a bonsai mix that I purchased online (lava rock, turface, fir bark, "peat based growing media") that I mixed the soil they were already in with...

I am in Portland OR. After re-potting everything I gave a little water and set outside to dry out, the past few days have been warm and dry. If it rains I plan on bringing them in. Eventually I would like to take them all to my studio for permanent placement, if they make it. Also, the wavy leaf plant in the glass terrarium style bowl I've had for a while, in that bowl, sitting on my front porch for months. It has some little weedlings growing in there too now, which I think I should pluck out!

Any advice, plant ID's, telling me of what I did wrong, help in general would be greatly appreciated!!!

[rainbowgardener]

Your bonsai mix should be fine for succulents. But any containers that do not have drainage holes will HAVE to have them drilled or the plants moved to different containers. It is nearly impossible to manage water correctly in containers with no drainage.

If you have a container with no drainage that you really like and don't want to/ can't drill, you can use it as a cache pot. Empty all the potting mix out of it and clean it. Get a little plastic pot small enough to fit into it, with drainage. Put the potting mix in the plastic pot. Put some large gravel in the bottom of the cache pot, to keep the plastic one from sitting in any water that drains out and put the plastic pot/soil/plant inside the cache pot. Be sure to empty the cache pot when the plastic one is finished draining after you water, so that you don't have water sitting in there getting stagnant and stinky.

[AshleyN]

I think I will have to overcome my fear and buy a diamond tip drill bit and get to work on these!

Not the glass though, that scares me too much. I will probably end up using those for moss or air plant terrariums

So my main question now is... did all my "gorilla-handling" and pulling apart of the plants (breaking quite a few roots in the process) doom my plants? I am afraid that I got a little too hasty in trying to get them grouped the way I wanted that I started playing with them like a 5 year old. Not graceful or gentle at all :/ Those two things have never been strong points for me!