Pleurothallid focused terrarium

[Paul Mc]

WOW!

BTW, I'm loving your blog!

[pleurothallid]

Thanks again guys. It helps to motivate me to pull out the camera if people want to see the images. I'm very excited about those Lepanthes in bud, I've been pretty nervous to work with them, though they are many of my favorites, so it's very rewarding to see them surviving and flowering. I did screw up the one name, which I fixed in the post. Thanks for checking out the blog too, it's bee nice to be able to think more about the designs and write about them, not to mention posting photos of other plants. If you know people who would like it, please send the link around to others.

[pleurothallid]

This is a bit off topic, but it relates indirectly. I live in New Orleans and when I was going to check out some of my favorite driftwood spots to see if there was any wood to be gotten, I snapped some photos of the flooding taking place on the levee.

Planted Glass Boxes: The rising waters/where the driftwood comes from

This is the post that has some photos of the current state of flooding (as of last night). All the wood featured in my terraria and aquariums is from the levees around the Mississippi River.

As I said, it's a bit off topic, but I thought someone may appreciate it. The peak of the water rise we won't experience for a few more days.

[DelawareJim]

Justin;

Great thread and awesome terrariums. Thanks for the link to your blog too. It's helping me with ideas for my orchidarium which is just an acrylic 2x2x4 foot high box right now.

I was thinking about lining the back and one side or half-way towards the front of both sides with ecoweb/epiweb and inserting some branches, but I'm afraid the epiweb/ecoweb might be a bit 2-dimensional.

Thoughts?

Cheers.
Jim

[pleurothallid]

Jim,
That's definitely an issue and to be honest it's difficult to address. In my first terrarium I had that issue and I tried to solve it two ways. The first iteration of the hardscape I used to large driftwood pieces from the ground up. The issue I had was they blocked air flow and created too many dead spots. When I did the second design of the hardscape I essentially wove driftwood pieces to make a 'tree' and then had other branches act as buttress roots coming out. This way it was more airy and the planting spaces were larger. It did still leave a big open area of tree fern, so I took a bunch of clippings of Selaginella and Begonia and spaced them throughout to create some texture. I then put moss around it and layered some other plants around. There's no perfect solution but it helps. I have some Restrepia there as well, but I'd had issues with some Masdavallia and Stelis (though others were fine), so just be careful and watch for dropped leaves and rotting.

Here's the terrarium I was referring to:
Planted Glass Boxes: The Prototype (Kym's terrarium)

Hope it helps.

[RobS]

nice thread

It's exactly what I was thinking about as a project for myself somewhere in the comming years.

[pleurothallid]

Originally Posted by RobS

nice thread

It's exactly what I was thinking about as a project for myself somewhere in the comming years.

Rob, Dutch aquaria and terraria are were the inspiration for me growing up. Vivaria Projects (Vivaria Projects - intro movie) used to blow my mind when I in high school in the computer lab during study hall. My goal was to eventually get enough money to import one. Luckily poverty during graduate school mixed with a tiny bit of creativity forced me to build my own and I'm pretty happy with the result.

[pleurothallid]

I just wanted to update this briefly. I just finished experimenting with a method of using concrete for a background in an aquarium. While it wasn't made for orchids, the method provided some nice satisfactory results for a background. The porous parts on the top that are exposed are currently filled in with the moss I use and I'll be planting some orchids on it.

Planted Glass Boxes: Aquarium projects: planted and bare

I think this process would work great for anyone wanting to build a drip wall and incorporate driftwood into that. If I do any smaller terraria I'll definitely look into it. There's a number of dyes you can add to the concrete patch kit to make an appealing color to you. The texture is also very nice and I think would work well for planting.

As I mention on the blog, I'll be in Panama the next few months and I'll update the blog as I can, but with 'field inspiration' instead of home gardening. I hope you will continue to check in.

Lastly for those of you hip to facebook, here's a link to the Planted Glass Boxes page. I encourage you to "like" and spread the word to those you think would be interested.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Plant...04687772900296

Good luck with your terrarium gardening projects.

[pleurothallid]

A quick blog update I made a little while back:

Planted Glass Boxes: Native plants of Panama and why terraria 'aren't natural'

Once things slow down a bit I'll work on the second Panamanian update. Next month around this time I'll also be planning on heading to Boquete, a near-by cloud forest where there's also the world famous Finca Dracula (Finca Dracula) that I'll visit. I'm sure that will get its own update.

[pleurothallid]

I just posted a quick update for those following the blog, including the first Panamanian orchid in bloom that I got a chance to photograph. If you know the ID, please post it.

Planted Glass Boxes: Panama Update #2