Plant chat: Updating my tropical terrarium
I’m taking some time off this week, so I had a chance to revisit my terrarium.
I took all the plants out and set them on an unfolded trash bag, then wiped down the lid, inside and outside of the aquarium. I didn’t bother cleaning the bottom, since it’ll just get dirty again.
Raymond lifted the aquarium off the desk for me temporarily so we could re-fold the fabric underneath and reset the whole thing. (The black cord leading underneath is a seedling heating mat, which helps the temps inside stay a bit higher.)
I was pretty tired of looking at a dirty glass terrarium floor, so I covered the bottom with a layer of horticultural sand. The plastic riser I’ve been using for tiny plants also isn’t very attractive, plus the wee pots tend to fall over, so I put down a layer of cork and covered that in horticultural sand, too.
I had too many things squished into the terrarium, so I had to make some choices when I put the plants back in. Two containers of propagating cuttings didn’t make the cut (pun intended); I like to have them on the heat mat, but really they can go anywhere warm in the house, so that’s fine.
The whole thing looks SO much better now. The sand won’t stay clean, of course, but it’s washable and will help keep the whole thing from looking ratty. It’s also a nice place to put some of my favorite rocks and gems.
I had had a tray of low-humidity desert plants under the full-spectrum light that’s sitting to the left on the desk. I’m moving those somewhere else and shifting the whole aquarium over (not shown) so that I can have a less-visible plastic tray between the terrarium and window for the supplies I use regularly with it: a spray bottle of water (for air plants), two repurposed plastic water bottles (so I don’t have to carry plants to the sink to water them).
Generally I bottom water these plants by lifting out the big maidenhair fern and using the glass dish under it for whichever plant needs water, so having a tray there gives me a place to put the fern whenever its dish is being used.
Roughly clockwise, starting with the pale purple flowering plant in back: African violet, ferns + wee African violets + air plants, two antenna ferns, austral gem fern, alocasia black velvet, some kind of calathea, lady slipper orchid, African violet, maidenhair fern.
Image description: A series of photos of an aquarium going from empty to full of plants, as described in the post.
Hi there! I'm Lindley. I create artwork that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards at Body Liberation Photography. I'm also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products. Find all my work here at bodyliberationphotos.com.
