A terrarium is a glass container that holds natural plants, pebbles, rocks, and soil. It is an ornamental piece of a natural setting that makes a great table or shelf display for your living room, foyer, or bedroom.
There are two types of terrariums, the open ones and closed kinds. While the open terrariums are open to the atmosphere and contain dry-weather plants that need the occasional weekly mist, the closed terrariums contain vegetation that requires a moist environment to thrive. The glass walls allow for both heat and light to enter the terrarium.
Aquariums and terrariums have some similarity in that they are glass containers, but while one contains fish in a natural environment, the terrarium contains a mini garden, kept in a unique environment that’s conducive for plant growth.
The kind of plants you can grow in terrariums depends on whether they are the open or closed types. Plants that thrive well in open terrariums are succulent plants like cacti, aloe vera, and jade plants. while closed terraria are best planted with moisture-loving plants like ferns, moss, air plants, and orchids.
Plant Terrariums as a Home Décor Item
If you like interior décor objects with a natural setting, you will love terrariums. It is like a mini garden or forest enclosed in its a little world. You can create one yourself because they are quite easy to build as long as you use the right plants conducive for the different types of terraria, the open or closed system. You can also purchase them if you are not a hands-on individual like many of us.
Bring new life into any interior space with terrariums by adding them to your room in any of the following ways:
- Perfect for accenting your coffee table
- Great for creating a mini-oasis atop your study desk.
- On a floating shelf, set at eye level, no higher than 5’0” from the floor.
- As a display item on the foyer console.
- Create a lush focal point with moss, ferns, and flowers with a terrarium
- As a centrepiece for your dining table.
- As a piece of furniture on a stand to serve as a coffee table, just like an aquarium coffee table.
- In the bathroom, you can hang a teardrop terrarium with an adjustable hanging rope.
- As decoration object displayed on a chest of drawers in the bedroom.
- Hang it solo to round out an empty corner or grouped with similar pieces for a stunning display in any room with ‘dead’ corners.
Features of a Terrarium
- Closed terrariums are self-watering. The mini garden releases water vapour which collects on the glass walls of the container and trickles down into the soil.
- Because they are self-nourishing the plants in closed terrariums require very little maintenance.
- Every terrarium has a drainage layer of charcoal (or gravel) that ensures excess water drains away from the soil and prevent root rot.
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