From the page: The bottle that still shines
Idea 2
Sealed terrarium in glass
The first famous sealed terrarium was born by accident in 1960, when an English botanist sealed mosses inside a glass vessel and they survived for decades without watering. The magic is the closed cycle: the plant transpires, the water condenses on the glass and returns to the soil — a mini rain perpetuated inside the bottle.
What you need
- A wide-necked wine bottle (there are cheap cutters, or ask a glass shop to do the cut)
- If you don't want to cut it: just use the whole bottle as a "greenhouse" over a small saucer with a plant
- Small pebbles for drainage
- Activated charcoal (the aquarium kind, sold at pet shops)
- Light substrate (soil with a bit of sand)
- Moss, mini peperomia, fittonia, or a small fern
- Long tweezers, a wooden spoon tied to a hanger, or string with a small cap for working inside the bottle
How to make it
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1
Cut the bottom off the bottle with a glass cutter (heating and cooling the cutting line with alternating hot and cold water) or choose the whole-bottle route, planting first and sealing after.
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2
At the bottom, make a 1-inch layer of pebbles: excess water accumulates there instead of soaking the roots.
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3
Sprinkle a fine pinch of activated charcoal over the stones — it absorbs odors and prevents fungi in the humid, closed environment.
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4
Add the substrate in a 2 to 3-inch layer, forming a slight depression where the plant will settle.
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5
With the tweezers, introduce the plant through the neck and settle the roots into the little hole, pulling soil over them with the spoon handle; the moss covers the surface and holds moisture.
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6
Spritz about two doses of distilled or filtered water — less is more, because the system recycles everything — and seal with the cork. If heavy fogging appears on the glass every day, it's too humid: unseal it for a few hours to balance.
Finishing touches
place it in bright, indirect light, never direct sun, which turns the glass into an oven. A terrarium like this can go months without a single watering — it's the most generous living gift a bottle can become.
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