Want some green in a bottle?

Sarah Thomas offers five simple steps for garden lovers to grow their own terrariums

Gardens are any city dweller’s delight. But with the lack of space, owning one seems like a far-fetched dream. Plant buffs, however, have started the trend of creating tiny gardens within glass containers that decorate a modern home.

Informally called bottle gardens, this art form, not new to the world, adds so much beauty to the space, while simultaneously satisfying one’s craving for a touch of green and freshness in the house.

“It is a heady but beautiful mix of miniature plants, transparent bottles and creation of a unique environment for plant growth,” says Vrinda Keshav, promoter at Mudfingers, a company that specialises in the designing of foliage and glass terrariums in Bengaluru. She describes terrariums as the creation of miniature gardens in a bottle, under a controlled environment.

A terrarium can be as small as a cookie jar or a huge aquarium – this totally depends on one’s liking. The size is never a concern if one masters the art of planting in a small container. Smaller the terrarium, the greater must be one’s skills to plant the green beauties, passing them through slender openings.

Considering the amount of skill and creativity that is required to create these functional tiny ecosystems, it would not be wrong to call it a green-thumb art.This art form requires a lot of thought at every step of the creation process. The in-a-bottle delights can be designed to suit an outdoor or indoor setting. The choice of plants would change depending on it’s placement.

Vrinda adds that an open or closed terrarium is the next choice you would have to make – this too influences the many other factors that would go into creating these bottle gardens. An open terrarium would require plants that need less moisture, like succulents and since a closed terrarium provides ample amount of moisture, she suggests the use of humidity-loving, tropical plants like fittunia, orchids or ferns.

Although all types of terrariums are easily available for sale today, nothing can replace the joy of creating one yourself. That said, if you are looking for specialised terrariums like an insecta-rium, to keep insects or a paludarium which provides means to have a little flowing stream within, then it’s best to purchase one.

A simple bottle garden can be created with no stress. Here’s a five-step process to create a beautiful terrarium for all the garden lovers. Before you begin, Vrinda recommends making a clear decision on the type of glass container you would use, depending on which you could choose the plants - which, as the expert mentions, one must be ‘wise’ while picking. For beginners, a large bowl or jar works well.

Garden homes

Containers can be bought easily from stores or you could go completely green and reuse some glass jar available at home. A glass bottle would do fine, but as previously pointed, the bigger the better, until you get the hang of it, after which you can have tinier gardens all over your living space.

Make sure you choose attractive containers. Apart from the fact that you own a garden in a bottle – a home for Gulliver’s Lilliputian friends, the container too acts as an eye-catcher.

Bring it to life

This is where your garden designing skills, creativity and ideas come into play. Vrinda proposes the use of charcoal that is washed and dried or gravel to form the base. Planting in a bigger container would not need great dexterity. But can improve it with time, making it possible to create smaller terrariums.

If you have chosen a large bottle with a narrow neck, you could use a funnel to push the gravel, suggests Vrinda. After this, you must add soil till it fills about a fourth of the jar, she adds. For those who find this exercise cumbersome, a terrarium mix is easily available in garden stores.

Work your green thumb

This is the planting phase. You can make a choice on the kind of plants you want to grow. Make sure you give enough space between two plants. Small plants are good, like a genie in the bottle they will transform your containers and the space they are placed in, be it your office or home. Baby’s tears, moss, cacti, venus flytrap, creeping fig and African violet are a few plant options. This again would depend on the type of container – open or closed.

Let your creativity loose

To enhance the look of your terrarium, you can add small figurines, objects or handcrafted artefacts. Vrinda specifies the use of decorative elements like mushrooms or even a gnome.

Water it immediately

The next important thing to do is to sprinkle water immediately, she says. Always look at the container and observe if the moisture is too much or too less, open or close the lid to let the moisture evaporate or to contain it within, to maintain the right amount in the terrarium.

Vrinda states that with the increase in the demand for terrariums, her customers have never come back with any problem as these little ecosystems need little maintenance. “The only challenge I have noticed for my customers is that they face a difficulty in choosing the right place for their terrarium. This glass of beauty should sit in a bright, well-lit space. Preferably near a white light or a wide window. An overhead source of muted white light is just perfect,” she states. 

While the process might seem complicated, the end result rest assured would be a beautiful bottle garden. What a refreshing sight! And don’t forget the old gardening saying, gardeners learn by trowel and error.