Artemisia Collage with Nature Terrariums

Photo from http://collagewithnature.com/default.htm

Here's the website for Portland-based Artemisia Collage with Nature - a shop specializing in terrariums, workshops and terrarium supplies.

Doll-sized Terraria

Photo by Heather Holloman / http://shadesoftangerine.blogspot.com

I never had a fancy dollhouse as a kid but I remember going to the local craft store and gazing longingly at all the tiny, meticulous dollhouse accoutrement.  I never wanted the dolls but I was enamored of the tiny jars of "coffee," miniature books and tiny potted plants. 

Check out Heather's lovely DIY guide on these adorable doll-sized terrariums at http://shadesoftangerine.blogspot.com/.  I love the idea and it's certainly something I've never seen before!

Moss Monday: Rachel Sussman's Oldest Living Things

La Llareta #0308-23B26
Up to 3,000 years old; Atacama Desert, Chile
Photo by Rachel Sussman

Today I present a plant that is not moss by any stretch of the imagination but- wow - when I came across Rachel Sussman's guest post at Brain Pickings I couldn't resist sharing this photo.  Sussman shares a poignant story about her ongoing photo project to document some of the oldest living things worldwide.  The photos are beautiful but her essay over at Brain Pickings is nearly a tear-jerker as she discusses the firey demise of a three-thousand-year-old Floridian tree dubbed The Senator: 

And with that, I made an unceremonious decision to return to The Senator when opportunity allowed. In the intervening years I traveled to Greenland for lichens that grown only 1cm every hundred years, to Chile for the strange and wonderful Llareta plant growing at 15,000 feet and a desert-cousin of parsley, and to Western Australia for the stromatolites, tied to the oxygenation of the planet and the very beginnings of all life on Earth. I went to Tasmania in search of a 43,000-year-old shrub that is the last of its species left on earth, rending it both critically endangered and theoretically immortal. But in five years, even despite having visited Florida a couple of times to see family, I did not make it back to The Senator. It was too easy. It would always be there. Surely, if The Senator had been around for 3,500 years, it was going to be around for 3,505.
But it wasn’t.

My favorite photo on her site The Oldest Living Things in the World was the above mentioned la llareta - a totally bizarre looking plant.  Check out the article at Brain Pickings and her lovely photorgapy at her site.

The Orchid Olympics in the Smithsonian Magazine

Paphiopedilum spicerianum. Photo by JG Bryce/Smithsonian Magazine

The current issue of the Smithsonian Magazine has an article about the 20th World Orchid Conference in Singapore.  The photos that accompany the story are jaw-dropping!  I love that the photographer (JG Bryce) presented the blooms on the white background as it allows you to take in every detail of each flower without having to discern the petals from the background.  Having attended orchid shows in the past I can say with confidence it can be downright infuriating not to be able to see some of the flowers up close (pack binoculars!).

The focus of the article by Somali Roy centers on the unusual combinations of orchid varieties developed by dedicated breeders.

At the Singapore Botanic Gardens' Orchid Breeding and Micropropagation Laboratory, some orchids start life as minuscule seeds strewn in a flask, in which they develop for up to a year. Photo by JG Bryce/Smithsonian Magazine

The growth conditions describe below sounds a lot like terrariums:

"The tiny seeds are strewn on nutrients in a sterile glass flask; after a few months, the seedlings are transferred to new flasks. Generally, they spend their first year under glass, their second year in community pots, their third in individual thumb pots. Only after four years do they begin to flower. The plants with the most favored characteristics, such as vigor, length of spray, and size, shape and color of flowers, are then cloned. A meristem, or growth tip, is clipped from the orchid and shaken in a flask. Normally a meristem produces one shoot, but “shaking the plant tissue confuses it and it will start producing many shoots,” Yam said. Growers separate the shoots to produce clones of the same hybrid." 

See more photos and the full story at smithsonian.com.

Terrariums Down Under

Photo: Rodger Cummins

Aussie Clea Cregan and her lovely "miniscapes" were featured in the Sydney Morning Herald last week.  She cites using books from the 70s to train herself in her terrarium-making-skills.  I highly recommend keeping an eye out for terrarium books from the 70s as well - they can be a wealth of resources.  Here are her tips for good terrarium plants:

Moisture-loving, low-growing plants are ideal for terrariums: African violets, baby's tears, silver net plants, ferns, begonias and succulents. Creeping fig is another good choice Cregan has used many times to create a lush, dense jungle.

Takanori Aiba and the Wardian Case

Bonsai-B by Takanori Aiba

I can only imagine the photos don't do these justice. And artist Takanori Aiba seems to subscribe to the unofficial motto around the F&M: anything is better under glass.  http://www.tokyogoodidea.com/ via I09.

Hawaiian Pineapple Island by Takanori Aiba