Bottle garden: tips for planting & Planting

The mini biotopes in the pretty glass jars are very trendy right now. In our video we show what you have to consider when creating a bottle garden and which plants are best suited for it.

DIY instructions for a bottle garden [music: www.bensound.com]

Bottle gardens have been planted for more than 100 years and have always fascinated their owners. No wonder, after all, the plants behind glass are not only a great decoration - especially the fact that a separate ecosystem forms in the bottle garden always attracts interested looks. Once the hermetosphere, as the closed bottle garden is called in technical jargon, is in equilibrium, the ongoing metabolic processes ensure that the bottle garden does not require any additional care. In fact, this way of keeping plants is not only visually appealing, but also particularly easy to care for.

Suitable plants for the bottle garden

You have to be careful here, because unfortunately not all plants are suitable for the bottle garden. Plants that are native or strong-growing, in particular, often cannot cope with the conditions in the bottle garden and die after a short time. Exotic indoor plants, on the other hand, are particularly well suited. The warm, humid living conditions are very similar to their natural habitat. A true classic in the bottle garden are carnivorous plants, which appreciate the high humidity and low nutrient content in the soil. Especially pitcher plants (Nepenthes), but also Venus flytraps (Dionaea) often thrive better in the bottle garden than when kept as an ordinary houseplant due to the consistently high humidity.

In addition to carnivores, there are other plants suitable for bottle gardening - ornamental pepper (Peperomia obtusifolia), spiderwort (Tradescantia) and small-leaved ivy (Hedera helix) are also well suited due to their high robustness. Bromeliads (Bromelia) and orchids provide color(Orchidaceae). Due to the limited space in the bottle garden, mini orchids, which can now be found in various orchid genera, are particularly suitable. But also small ferns and various types of moss should not be missing in the bottle garden, as they have a positive influence on the climate there. On the other hand, cacti and succulents are not suitable for the bottle garden due to the high humidity - here the container in which they are planted should always be open at the top.

Create bottle garden

Creating a bottle garden is an exciting event for the whole family. The best way to do this is described below.

You need this

Even though a bottle garden sounds complicated at first, it actually doesn't take much to create a hermetosphere. So the materials needed only include:

• A large glass jar with a lid (e.g. an old mason jar) or a plant terrarium
• Suitable plants for the bottle garden
• Living Moss
• Carnivore Soil
• Plant Clay
• Water spray bottle
• And at will: decoration elements

The right soil for a bottle garden

To ensure that a bottle garden still contains a functioning ecosystem even after years, it is particularly important to use a well-suited substrate. Normal potting soil often contains too many nutrients for the hermetosphere - since plants live in the bottle garden that often thrive on nutrient-poor soil, this substrate is extremely unsuitable. On the other hand, the use of so-called carnivore soil is optimal. Thanks to its nutrient composition, this is not only perfectly adapted to the needs of sensitive plants, but also offers good water storage capacity. This is particularly important as many of the plants for the bottle garden require a particularly humid environment with high humidity. You can add some sand to the carnivore soil so that there are no symptoms of deficiency even with a longer culture. Iron sticks to this, from which the carnivores can benefit.

How to plant the hermetosphere

The first step in planting the hermetosphere is to create a drainage layer. For this purpose, a layer of plant clay about six to seven centimeters high is filled into the Flaschengarten glass. This serves on the one handas a water reservoir, but at the same time prevents permanent waterlogging of the substrate. Although many plants for the bottle garden like moist soil, they cannot tolerate permanently wet feet either. In addition, poor drainage can lead to mold growth in the substrate, which can become a major problem in the closed bottle garden. About five to six centimeters of carnivore soil are now filled into the glass jar over the drainage layer. So that the fine roots of the plants can grow better later, it is advisable to crumble up large clods of earth with your fingers and loosen the soil a little.

Now the first plants can move into the bottle garden. The arrangement of the individual plants can be chosen at will, but care should be taken to choose plants with similar location and care requirements, so that everyone feels equally comfortable in the hermetosphere. In addition, only completely he althy and pest-free plants should be used for the bottle garden - otherwise uninvited guests can quickly spread to the other plants in the bottle garden. When repotting the carnivorous plants in particular, you should also be careful not to damage the sensitive roots. Excess soil is therefore only carefully removed by hand and the plants are loosely placed in their new place. Once all the plants are in place, you can carefully fill in the gaps between the plants with soil.

Now is the time to put the moss between the plants. Most types of moss can be divided by hand without any problems, so that the plant can be individually adapted to the space in between. The moss is also only carefully pressed onto the ground. Now the plants can be watered. Both mosses and carnivores prefer lukewarm, lime-free water (e.g. rainwater or still mineral water). You should now moisten all plants properly with a spray bottle. Important: The soil should be well moistened, but not soaking wet. If water is already collecting at the bottom of the glass jar, you should keep the lid of the bottle garden open for a few days so that the excess water can dry off. If you want, you can also decorate your bottle garden. Natural materials such as stones or wood are particularly suitable for this, but also small toy figures orPlastic ruins can be extremely decorative.

Here is an overview of all the steps:

1. Fill about 6 to 7 cm of plant clay as a drainage layer in the glass jar
2. Fill about 5 to 6 cm of carnivore soil on the drainage layer, crumble it finely
3. Pot the plants carefully and put them in a new substrate
4. Fill vacancies with carnivore soil
5. Put living moss between the plants
6. Moisten with lukewarm, lime-free water
7. Decorate as you like

Location and maintenance of the bottle garden

To ensure that the plant garden lasts for many years and still looks appealing, you should pay attention to several things. For example, the correct location of the bottle garden is particularly important. This should be as bright as possible, but not allow direct sunlight - otherwise (depending on the curvature of the bottle garden glass) the sun's rays could be concentrated, as is known from magnifying glasses, for example, which in the worst case could lead to burns on the plants. On the other hand, if the hermetosphere is too shady, the plants cannot photosynthesize sufficiently and die.

If you have chosen the right location, the bottle garden should ideally not need any further care. Within the hermetosphere, their own material cycles are created, so that the plants thrive largely autonomously from humans. However, especially at the beginning, one or the other hand movement may be necessary to keep the plants in the bottle garden alive. At best, the glass should only be slightly fogged up in the morning - if the glass also fogs up during the day or even drops run down, there is too much water in the circuit. To fix that, you should open the jar and let it dry for a while. If the glass doesn't fog up in the morning or if the plants let their leaves hang, the biotope is too dry and it should be watered. You should also lend a hand with rotting or diseased plant parts and remove them before mold forms. However, the bottle garden is not fertilized. The internal metabolic processes are sufficient to fully cover the plant's nutrient requirements.

If you want to create your own bottle garden with carnivorous plants, here you can againread about the best way to repot the carnivores.

Many thanks to Floragard for the support!