DIY Terrarium

[BigV]

Good morning!

Today I made a terrarium.

We went for a Sunday drive and found ourselves at the neighborhood nursery, Swansons. I love this place, it's right in my neighborhood (well, almost two miles from my house, ok?) and right in a residential area. It is an oasis of beautiful and interesting plants in an already verdant and fecund area. I love to go there and just walk around, taking pictures, enjoying the beauty and getting ideas. One idea I got on this trip was to make a terrarium.

I saw a lovely display in one of their greenhouses. It looked a little like a glass fronted medicine cabinet, but smaller. It was made of metal with doors on the front, a slanted top and some pretty greenery inside. I learned later this style is called a Wardian case. It was pretty, but for $149 I decided I could do as well or better for a lot less. It turns out I was right.

I love the look of the Wardian cases, but the traditional cloche style or glass jar style terraria can also be beautiful. It is the captive greenery that appeals, not just the container; the wine, not the bottle, if you will. So I set out yesterday to find a suitable container. I thought about using my recently acquired sink-crushing carboy, but I didn't want to make a ship in a bottle style to start with. Someday, maybe, but not today.

I found this beverage dispenser at Goodwill. It has a working spigot (which I plugged up) but the lid was found in the cookwares section. I like the wide opening (about six inches across, big enough for me to work with the materials and plants directly with my hands. I brought it home washed it thoroughly, "sterilized" it with lots of boiling water, cleaned it up, dried it up and started in on the preparation and planting. Here is my construction photo journal.

My tabla rasa. The jar cleaned and ready to fill.


I had some aquarium gravel and put some in the bottom. This is for drainage.


This looks like a lot of gravel. It is a lot of gravel, actually, but my excuse is that the bottom of the jar is domed upward and I wanted a bit of gravel across the whole bottom and that meant covering the dome. The gravel is about a half to one inch deep at the center.


Next came a layer of charcoal, half an inch according to what I read.