The Prototype (Kym's terrarium)

As a child I had set up several terrariums, the majority inspired by my herpetological mentor, Mike Shrom. Back in those days Mike's terrariums were a little more stark than his current, mainly comprised of gravel sloping into a pool, covered in a soil mixture and with simple cork bark/coconut huts.  On occasion they were lit by artificial lighting.

Years later I was more interested in plants and the diversity of plants easily accessible increased.  Then came a number of years with no terrariums, mainly when I was traveling the most and living abroad often.  When I started my masters I set up a small planted fish tank, replete with wild strain guppies from Venezuela (known in the aquarium trade as 'Endler's live bearers', after a scientific idol of mine John Endler).  The next year I moved into a new house and set up a larger planted fish tank, next came some salt water aquaria.  Upon moving to New Orleans I had to start over.  I started another salt water tank, but the cost of stocking the tank here was far higher than North Carolina and I decided to sell off what I had and start a terrarium instead.

I had a little wire rack in my room that seemed to be a decent size to hold the terrarium, so I contacted glasscages.com with the dimensions and design ideas.  The one thing I neglected to do was measure my car to double-check that the terrarium would fit through the door openings, rather I measured inside only and figured I was fine.  Luckily the glass was resilient (as was my car) to the rocking and shoving, and I was on my way to starting a new terrarium.  

The background I had planned on doing in tree fern panels or epiweb, and I wanted to try to mount some wood coming from the panels like branches so I could plant them.  The downside of using the wire rack was the depth was restricted, so I was going to try to compensate for that.  I obtained plants from a number of generous friends and got my first orchids from Andy's and I was set.  The only problem was I was leaving for a European tour with a friend's band two weeks after it was set up, and between that and my field season I would be gone for around 4 months.  The goal was that if I was lucky and set things up properly, I would return to a nice and mature terrarium with no input from me, other than initial planting. While this was ended up being true, there were some orchid fatalities from over watering (6x a day misting was too much once the tank saturated). 

One success though was a prototype fan system I designed to allow high levels of air movement, yet by utilizing a closed-circuit design I didn't lose any humidity.  This design element I incorporated into all subsequent designs.

When I moved yet again, into my current "Casa Man Cave" I decided to do a little overhaul of the hard scape to fit in better with the newly built 'Mega terrarium'.  I pulled out all the old hardscape and built a 'tree' out of a number of pieces of driftwood, essentially woven together to mimic buttress roots coming from a central trunk (on the right side).  The result was more plantable space, which turned out to be a great look when covered in moss and bladderworts.  

The major challenge was how to make the background (tree fern) look dynamic with plants, rather than the big, flat open space that it was.  I layered various Begonia species with Selaginella and spaced throughout, Philodendron and Monstera provide further vertical structure with accents of Peperomia and Marcgravia.  I'm very happy with the design now, as is Kym (thankfully...) who is a close friend, neighbor and the current owner of the terrarium.

To date this is the most mature terrarium I've built, and it's always nice to check in on its progress, clip some cuttings and admire it.  For Kym it's been very little work to maintain, which is also a plus.  

If you know anyone who would enjoy this blog, please help spread the word.  If you know anyone who would like a Planted Glass Box, have them contact me.