What is a Bottle Garden?
Bottle gardens are decorative gardens encased in a glass or plastic container, usually a clear bottle. A miniature ecosystem garden of this type is an ideal way to enjoy live plants in a living space that is somewhat small and not conducive to keeping potted plants. A bottle garden can be equipped with green plants, flowers or vegetables. Bottle gardening is an excellent way to introduce children to the world of living plants. Parents or teachers can help the child choose plants for the garden, and aid in the assembly. Requiring little more than a consistent source of light and some water, the garden can flourish in the self-contained world of the bottle. As the plants grow, it is possible to observe the changes and learn a great deal about the natural world. Assembling a bottle garden is a relatively easy task. Clear bottles with a wide neck work very well, as the wider opening makes it much easier to arrange the elements of the garden. Collections of small plants that will thrive wit
00:43:17 – 2329 RL: You put in a bottle that can be closed gravel and soil and some plants—small plants that fit into the garden—and make a small terrarium and then water it, close it off and you can watch the condensation of the—the moisture in the air run down the sides of the bottle. And you can make this on this—elaborate as you want. But it can be as small as a quart bottle or and—we bought containers that were sort of spherical with a flat bottom so that it was more attractive than just a regular quart bottle. And these can grow in your windowsill and if you want tiny animals in there, it’s possible. If—if—use any 00:44:23 – 2329 imagination you want. You can watch the plants grow and outgrow their environment, if you like. But it makes it a nice classroom activity for the children and it gives a—an excellent setting of how important the root system for a plant is, as well as the part that we’re used to seeing that—that grows above ground. DT: Well, it’s intriguing to me that you
