Rich Soil Plants

• Several desert plants do well in rich, sandy soil. Hen and Chicks, also known as Mexican Snowball, is a small rosette of fleshy grayish-blue leaves with pink flowers. It prefers full sunlight and temperatures ranging from 50 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. This plant should only be fertilized twice a year with a water-soluble fertilizer. Stonecrop is a desert plant with tufted stems, small, closely packed succulent leaves and pink, red or rusty-colored flowers. It likes full sunlight and temperatures ranging between 60 and 75 degrees. It needs good ventilation and, like Hen and Chicks, only needs to be fertilized twice a year. Plush plants and tricolored sedums can also be grown in rich, sandy soil. Plush plants are related to Hen and Chicks but don't form perfect rosettes. Tricolored sedums, or Dragon's Blood, are related to stonecrops.
  
  

Coarse Sand Plants

• Haworthia and elephant bush are two plants that grow well in a mixture of coarse sand and potting mix. Elephant bush is a small shrub with small, rounded leaves. Haworthias resemble aloe plants, which they're related to. Both can be grown in moderate light, although the elephant bush prefers bright light.
  
  

Containers

• Vivarium containers should be made from clear plastic or glass because tinted glass reduces the amount of light that reaches the plants and cuts back on their growth. Some vivariums have covers. Covered vivariums will be more humid. Since deserts don't have a humid environment, you may not want to have a cover on your vivarium. In addition to being drier, plants grown in open vivariums don't tend to have as many disease problems.
  
  

Care

• Be careful not to overwater plants in your vivarium because it doesn't have any external drainage and standing water encourages root disease. Placing gravel and charcoal under the soil will help with occasional overwatering. Vivarium plants don't require much fertilizer either. If it's necessary to fertilize, only use one-fourth the amount of water-soluble houseplant fertilizer that's used on normal houseplants. Pruning plants will help keep them from outgrowing your container. Pinching off the tips before they get too tall is better than cutting them back.