Bauer Anna - Terrarium: 33 glass gardens from around the world

A first encounter with a terrarium often evokes the same feelings in viewers. For many, it is a way to absorb a distillation of nature from a sprig of greenery. We love to watch this little garden under glass, to see its plants grow and bloom.

These miniature worlds function quite simply, on the same basic principles that govern life on Earth. With a few fundamentals of botany, you will understand, create, and sustain your terrarium.

A terrarium is composed of elements from the plant and mineral worlds, and microorganisms. We bring these together in a glass container to re-create a landscape. The container that shelters them becomes the place where they play their biological roles; they interact and thrive, players in a real ecosystem. A group of living beings in a biological environment is indeed an ecosystem.

A closed terrarium creates an environment resembling that of a tropical rain forest in the guise of an artificial micro-ecosystem, with an almost self-sufficient cycle. The transparent, enclosing nature of the glassin the case of closed terrariumsallows this self-sufficiency. The transparent glass lets in the light essential to the life of plants, and the condition of being sealed keeps the humidity emitted by the plants in the jar so that there is nearly no need to add water. As long as this landscape under glass receives a good initial dose of all the necessary elements to thrive (water, light, nutrients), it can live in near-autonomy for a long time. Human intervention can be minimal or unnecessary. A different technique from the closed design is the open terrarium, which also assembles plants to create a small landscape, but in a container without a cover.

This design method does not engage the same biological process: since it does not maintain its humidity level, the terrarium is not a self-sustaining ecosystem. In keeping with the idea of natural designs without many needs, we choose plants from arid environments for this type of landscape. Cacti and succulents allow for easy care since they consume very little water.

We make a terrarium the way a landscape gardener designs a garden, but in miniature. The art of the composition balances aesthetic and biological interesttrue to the reality of nature. The choice of associations between living and mineral elements can lead to a beneficial symbiosisor to a failure that will make you think you dont have a green thumb.

Consider first the requirements of the plants in their natural environment before assembling the terrarium. The combination of plants according to their habitat needsmoisture, light, soil typeis accomplished by mingling plants that will not compete with each other at the level of their branches or their roots. If, for example, we dont combine forest mosses with cacti in the same design, its because they dont have the same moisture requirements. The moss needs ample moisture to stay green, an amount that would spoil a cactus.

Many of our terrariums are created according to our classic style: a central miniature tree that enhances the effect of a landscape in a jar and gives it its scale, with a few companion plants or mineral embellishments that recall the diversity at the foot of this tree in its natural environment. A rain forest tree, for example, such as a ficus, has beside it a luxuriant and colorful tropical plant such as a fittonia.

Aralia, which loves acidic soils, goes well with ferns, which have the same needs in terms of soil type. Mosses are an important component of high-moisture designs; they may grow in flat mats (sheet moss) and evoke a tiny meadow, or some mosses grow in mounds (cushion moss) and create the impression of a verdant hill. Small stones become boulders; small dead branches or twigs are transformed into miniature mossy logs.