A terrarium is a lovely green world under glass—a diminutive wood where the eye can wander freely and the imagination roam free.
Here stands a hill, a meadow, a canyon perhaps, all Lilliputian. With only a few seconds’ care every week, this glass-enclosed tropic pleasures you for months.
History of Terrariums
The first terrarium was made in England by Dr. Ward. A butterfly collector in his free moments, he once brought a rare chrysalis indoors to watch it hatch and, for protection, set it in a covered glass jar.
With the chrysalis came a chunk of soil. Immediately, the soil began to sprout, and long after the butterfly had flown off, Dr. Ward had a garden of lovely diminutive plants under glass.
Soon, others followed his example, and the containers for these gardens under glass became known as Wardian cases.
Gathering Materials For Your Terrarium
The woods are the place to go for material, though if no woods are available, appropriate plants may be purchased in greenhouses or through the catalogs.
Going to the woods is, of course, the most fun, and now is the ideal time.
Glass Container
You will need a glass container—fish bowl, brandy snifter, or any kind of aquarium, large or small. Even a glass tea kettle will do! Ordinary tumblers of good clear glass make special kinds of enclosed gardens.
Bowls and containers for terrariums may be purchased in ten-cent stores and florist shops. You need a cover for each one.
Plexiglass, cut to fit, being unbreakable is splendid. Regular glass will do well, and the hardware store will cut it and file the edges so they are no threat.
Tweezers
You also want a pair of long-handled tweezers (to be found at a second-hand medical supply house), a bulb sprayer from the five and fen. and scissors—that’s all.
Incidentally, if the wood is your source of plants, tools and containers are your only investment. A terrarium is an inexpensive Christmas present.
Creating Your Terrarium
Terrarium material is available in woods, meadows, and along the roadsides anytime after Christmas until the ground is frozen solid or covered with snow.
Gather tiny ferns (keeping everything in scale), some 1 inch high, a few 2, 3, or 4 inches high—no taller unless you work with a large, deep aquarium.
Search for lichen 1 inch high in dry fields where birches grow—pink lichen and that wonderful red-tipped lichen.
If you investigate these under a magnifying glass, you’ll find the red resembles red apples on top of a stem.
You’ll want mosses—sphagnum and a great variety of others— some with long hair and some with short, flexible, and stiff. Find, if you can, the shell-like lichen that grows on dead trees and bits of interesting bark.
Bring in small creeping vines—reindeer moss, that tangle of gray feathers that stiffens when dry and goes limp as a sponge when wet. Anything diminutive that attracts you is a possibility.
Best Ferns to Grow
Despite several touches of frost, many ferns will remain untouched. Among the best sorts of ferns for terrariums include:
- Ebony spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron), which grows along the roadsides
- The rock fern (Polypodium vulgare) spreads like a blanket on huge boulders in damp or dry woods.
These are your taller ferns. You’ll also want wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), with leaves rich and shiny, whose bright red berries give a holiday note.
Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata) produces a pair of white-striped, saw-edged stiff leaves atop a reddish stem.
And the rattlesnake-plantain (Goodyera repens) is the loveliest of all for the terrarium.
The leaf has a mosaic-like marking that is so infinitely varied that one never tires of studying it. In addition, take home a few trowelsful of leaf mold.
Any or all of this material will remain fresh in a cool garage for several weeks if it is covered with newspaper, watered, and occasionally aired. Light frosts do not harm it.
Production
Now, with your material on hand, you are ready to go into production. Wash and polish the glass containers till they sparkle.
Those made of clear glass arc best—the glass that wiggles obscures the view within. Suppose you start with a large-sized brandy snifter.
Step one is to line the bottom of the container with some kind of soft moss (possibly sphagnum) and upside down so only the green shows through and no soil is visible.
Keep the “horizon” line of the scene you create below the widest part of the container; avoid getting a “high-waisted” look by setting the material too high. Keep the whole scene well below the middle line.
On top of the moss, spread a thin layer of leaf mold. In this, you will plant the ferns. Next, select a piece of substantial short-haired moss that is flat and stiff enough to make a bank up one side. Stuff leaf mold behind to hold the moss on its side, forming a steep hill.
On top of the hill, place your tallest fern, choosing one with three to five fronds. (Roll each fern root up and wrap it in leaf mold as you plant.) These fronds will gracefully bend this way and that—immediately starting some fine curves.
Dribble a few tiny one-inch ferns down the sides of the hill at the edges next to the glass. Leave the center of the moss hill smooth and untouched.
Opposite the hill, create a rolling rise and plant here one pipsissewa, rattlesnake-plantain, or miniature evergreen, keeping a low path through the middle of the terrarium between the rolling rise and the hill. A terrarium with a path is always interesting.
Now, you have a 2-inch-tall hill on the right with high ferns and a low 1-inch rise on the left with lower plants, all on upside-down moss.
You have a path and a low valley providing a way through. On the floor of the valley, place short-haired flat moss.
With tweezers, insert tiny ferns, lichens, and bits of moss where different levels and mosses join and where plants fit in. This will completely conceal leaf mold and roots.
Main Principles of Terrarium Making
Are you beginning to see your composition come into being? You never want too much clutter. Keep it simple and let each appealing treasure stand out.
The main principles to follow are: Have green moss everywhere on the bottom so you never see soil or roots through the glass. Use contrasting foliage, some feathery, some stiff, and smooth.
Use contrasting mosses —yellow-green, blue-green, and gray-green. My own private rules are nothing artificial: no colored stones, no Japanese pagodas, bridges, or figures. I always keep mine natural.
When you have arranged it all to your liking, sprinkle the greenery with room-temperature water and put it on the cover. And, of course, you will pause a moment to admire before starting the next.
One year, I made about ten varying-sized brandy snifter terrariums in one afternoon a few weeks before Christmas. It was my favorite gift that year, and their reception was most enthusiastic and warm.
Maintaining Your Terrarium
The ideal place to keep a terrarium where it will thrive and continue to grow all winter is touching the glass in a north window with plenty of light.
If the terrarium glass touches the window glass, it picks up a coolness from the outdoors and keeps the plants fresh and green. Once every day or so, lift the top for a few moments.
Put your hand in and feel that pleasant tropical sensation on your fingers; meanwhile, the plants within are getting a bit of desired fresh air.
Sprinkle lightly every week if the soil seems dry—but only lightly. Never let water be visible at the bottom of the container.
Never let it become soggy; never let the sunshine on your terrarium, or it will mold in two days.
If you make several terrariums for Christmas, make them a week or two in advance and keep them in a coolish room with their glass touching the pane of a north window.
Benefits of Having a Terrarium
And, of course, you must keep one for your household. Regardless of the winter weather, here at your side is your small private tropic.
Here is your imagination. You can, each day, diminish yourself, Alice in Wonderland style, and enter for quiet contemplation.
Here is a moment of serenity at the beginning or end of a busy day—all is quiet within and green and growing. The lichen welcomes you. The tiny evergreens perk up your world under glass.
44659 by Jean Hersey