Ever imagined a garden in a bottle? Sounds bizarre, but its true! In fact now you can make your every own bottled-garden by growing plants in a bottle and creating a lush green mini-ecosystem right on your table-top. If you are a plant lover, then bottled beauties will definitely fascinate you.

Faridabad-based Radhika Anand, who has mastered the art of bottling up gardens in small glass containers, explains what exactly terrariums are, “Bottle gardens or terrarium are miniature, self-contained eco-systems. Once created, these closed environs can go for months unattended without even adding water. The plants transpire moisture through their leaves, which then condenses on the glass, and flows back to the soil. This ‘rain effect’ allows the terrarium to go on for weeks without watering”.

It look Radhika two years to understand the concept of the terrariums as she had to experiment with a lot of permutations and combinations before arriving at the perfect method to create them. There are two types of terrariums – open and closed ones. Open terrariums are bigger in size and can be placed in balconies, whereas closed ones are smaller and are usually placed in-doors.

Radhika mentions, “Almost any glass bottle jar, jug, or fish tank can be used as a terrarium”. The shelf life of these creations can extend from six months to a year after which new ones. No seeds or saplings but a full grown plant is used for terrariums. One can use these terrariums effectively in the kitchen as mini kitchen gardens too. In fact, these bottled gardens are a boon for your kitchen, as you can grow several herbs like basil, mint, coriander, according to your culinary needs, in them. “Whatever you need while cooking, you can just open a bottle, pick and pinch it in your recipe there and then,” say Radhika.

Terrariums are also used for decorative purposes. Closed ones can be used as tables while the open ones are smaller in size in can be kept on shelves or tables.

Some common plants used for creating these gardens are Poinsettia Aphelandra, Bougainvillea, Money plant, Wandering Jew, Fittonia, Peoperomia, Cynthia, Drasena, Succulent, Sedum and so on. Some exotic plants like Ivy, and Nana also go into these bottled gardens. For the up-keep of these terrariums, Radhika recommends, “Neglect is the best method of care. They need only a little sunlight (never expose the bottle gardens to the sun for too long) and nothing else from the outside.” Once placed right, terrariums are low maintenance and require minimum fuss.

Step - 1
Line the bottom of the container that is about one inch or one-fifth of the container, with pea-sized gravel (the kind used in aquariums work well). This ensures that there is ample drainage for water. Place shells or coloured stones before introducing the gravel if you wish to decorate the piece.