Talk:Bottle garden

Comment
There is plenty of scope for development here:
 * We could go further with describing how the cycles of nutrient and water go round within the bottle- carbon, water, minerals.

Water cycle- evaporate from soil and plants- condense in cool, especially on cool glass, running down into soil again.


 * We could talk about cheap common basic ones compared with proper balanced ones. I know that most you see in shops are cheaply put together from poor quality bottles.  A good one should have carefully selected layers of soil including carbon to filter smells.  The plants should be carefully selected to live in bottle conditions and matched with other suitable plants.  Many cheap modern bottle gardens are not truly self-contained as they do not even have a lid.
 * Maintenance- Water will probably escape slowly, especially if there is no lid, and will need topping up, perhaps once a year. Roots may gradually emerge from the soil and may need to be clipped to maintain the appearance of the garden.  Likewise, as the water evaporates from the soil and plants, then condenses on the glass, the moist glass may gradually accumulate algae, which will have to be removed if the appearance is to be maintained.  The algae will also gradually make it darker in the bottle.

I am not putting any of this into the article as it should be proper sourced, but I have owned a bottle garden for 20 years and I do have a City & Guilds in Gardening.

IceDragon64 (talk) 10:56, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Here is a potentially useful link: http://www.wikihow.com/Grow-a-Garden-in-a-Bottle -  Although it does not have much status, it does, IMO explain things well.

Traditional Carboys have a reasonable sized neck to give access, but may lose water too quickly. Smaller necks make it more difficult but produce the effect of a "Magical growth in an "inaccecible" bottle.

IceDragon64 (talk) 11:06, 15 July 2012 (UTC)


 * If we describe "how the cycles of nutrient and water go round within the bottle- carbon, water, minerals." it would not be specific to bottle gardens and could encourage duplication in Wardian case and terrarium and biosphere, so let's just have a suitable link eg in see also. - Rod57 (talk) 11:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

What can be said about which species are suitable or not suitable
Are there sources that advise on how to set them up ? eg. What can be said about which species are suitable or not suitable. What soil to use, how deep ..., how much water to put in before sealing ... ? - Rod57 (talk) 11:05, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Wardian cases
I see there is a link to Wardian cases in the "see also" section, but should they be mentioned more prominently in the introduction? As it is, reading the intro suggests that this is a 20th century innovation.

This sentence doesn't make sense
"The carbon dioxide from plant respiration is used for photosynthesis, and the oxygen from photosynthesis is used for respiration.[1] As such they require almost no maintenance."

I think whoever wrote this was misinterpreting something they read when they tried to summarize it.

Plant respiration uses up CO2 and produces oxygen. However, carbon dioxide is not "from plant respiration" - it needs to be continuously added by something else (for example shrimp, snails, certain bacteria can do it in a closed container). Open container plants just get it from the atmosphere. The sentence also implies that the oxygen the plant produces is all used up by the plant, but plants produce way more oxygen than they can use. You need something else to use it up (for example shrimp, snails, certain bacteria can do it in a closed container). I'm going to edit this part of the article to clarify.

Habanero-tan (talk) 03:43, 6 April 2023 (UTC)