The world in a jar

We have developed terrarium fever. I warn you, it could be contagious. This affliction began over the winter with terrarium build videos on YouTube and a very simple terrarium building party for my son’s birthday.

A terrarium is a whole ecosystem – some even including bugs! They are fascinating and my 13-year-old fell down this rabbit hole with me. We learned about paludariums (land and water features in one system) and vivariums (living habitats for pets) and fully underwater ecosystems with some fish or other aquatic life.

We have been gathering supplies and learning about the magic of springtails – little bugs that eat fungus and prevent mold from overwhelming the system. It’s been a full biology and ecology course.

As we pondered making more complex terrariums, I decided we would propagate our own moss. If you grab tiny samples of live moss and create a nursery for them (in our case, old takeout containers and a bed of sterilized sphagnum moss), over time they will grow, supplying moss for your terrariums without overtaxing your local ecosystem or disturbing public areas.

We went on a moss walk recently to gather our samples. There was resistance to getting out of the house, so I invited my kids on the smallest possible walk.

“Let’s see if there is any moss growing around our driveway or down at the end of the road.”

They accepted my invitation, however unenthusiastically. At the end of our driveway, we found our first cache of moss and someone wondered aloud how many kinds of moss there could even be. Probably not that many, he assumed.

Pretty soon we had headed into the woods to check out a stone wall. Suddenly I was the one following behind as the kids took the lead. We arrived home an hour later with seven or eight different types of moss to identify and attempt to propagate.

Our first little terrariums are now settling into their containers – a vintage Ball jar, a small spice jar and a jam jar. They are tiny worlds filled with rocks, shells and sea glass from our beach combing, sticks and moss from our neighborhood, and plants whose Latin names we are learning.