I felt that the June 2022 ‘terrarium breakdown’ needed documenting, even if only to have something to show my future therapists if the government ever fund mental healthcare properly.
I wouldn’t be a big fan of the old monarchy, it’s fair to say, and for a few weeks I felt like I was living in Ian Paisley’s fever dream. I did not want to live there so I started watching a lot of videos about terrariums. One of my earliest memories is ‘helping’ my mother create one (the extent of the practical support I was able to provide is open to debate). I’m not really into houseplants or even growing anything other than vegetables but I was under some mental strain because every time I went outside to the allotment, I had to run a gauntlet of Butcher’s Aprons. So for several days, the sole focus of my life was on making a terrarium or two.
The main issue was that I ordered too many tiny plants. I went on Etsy, which is never a good idea in the first place, and just wanted all the plants because buying plants is what I do when I have emotions I can’t process. The shop I found was really good, the plants arrived safe and sound, and there was me thinking ‘what have I done’.
It soon became clear that I was going to need more jars, so I scuttled off to the shop and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. I followed a fairly straightforward terrarium guide and used the same procedure each time – gravel, then activated charcoal, then potting mix and moss. All my terrariums were going to be closed on the sole basis that all my containers had lids.
This is where we play a little training montage. I spent an entire Sunday doing this after an incredibly stressful week and it felt good for the sole focus of my angst to be ‘How do I get all these tiny plants into these jars’ for a bit.
I’m going to describe all four of these frightening things I made. This one might be my favourite – I’ve had very limited luck growing orchids that I haven’t imprisoned in glass but that seems to be the way forward because she’s still here after 3 weeks and that breaks the last ‘orchid survival’ record by a good 2 weeks. She’s in there with a little nephrolepis fern, and there are also some decorative skulls from a bracelet that I broke because I was in an Extinction Rebellion meeting where they were making us do guided meditation and I pulled on the bracelet in frustration and scattered the skulls among the hippies. A shocking scene.
This one’s the smallest and she’s a Tradescantia Nanouk. I put way too much water in and am not really sure what to do about this other than ‘don’t water her for a while’, but apparently she should be able to cope because she’s less sensitive to humidity owing to her robust leaves, we’ll see about this.
This is the largest of the four and contains a Blue Star fern and a little Peace Lily (and possibly another plant I’ve forgotten), plus some sea glass I collected. Some of the leaf tips have been burnt under the LED light even after a pretty short space of time so I’m having to take care not to put it under direct light at all, but I think it’ll be quite happy if I just leave it alone in the dark (same).
Finally we have whatever this is. The glowing thing you can see in the middle is a neon angel figure and I have no memory of how I got it so my working theory is ‘God sent a sign that I should stop making terrariums and get a grip’. Plant-wise we have a couple of fittonias and an asparagus fern.
So that’s how my insanity’s manifesting itself this month. I wasn’t hugely picky about what plants to get and ordered the ‘mixed’ batches from the shop but I’m happy with that decision. Three weeks later they’re still going strong, I’m planning on watering them and airing them out every couple of weeks at this point and seeing how that works. It was quite nice to do gardening other than allotment gardening for a change, and now I can’t stop thinking about a potential next project…a goth carnivorous terrarium. But we’ll save that one for another day.
The Ginger Allotmenteer 