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Terrariums - Gardens Under Glass: Designing, Creating, and Planting Modern Indoor Gardens
Terrariums are the ultimate way to bring the natural world indoors!
The art of terrarium making is back in vogue and better than ever. Growing collections of adorable miniature plants in glass vessels is a great way to bring the indoors out and get back in touch with nature—no matter where you live and what time of year it is. Whether you reside in a tiny apartment, spend the bulk of your hours at an office desk, or just want to be better connected to green, living things, terrariums are the ticket. A wondrous combination of nature, gardening, and home decor, terrarium building and tending is both therapeutic and inspirational.
Terrarium expert and teacher Maria Colletti makes designing your very own interior gardens easy with step-by-step photos of over twenty of her own terrarium designs . Plus, you'll get all the information you need about popular terrarium plant s, such as tillandsias (air plants), orchids, mosses, cacti, succulents, and ferns.
Transform basic glass containers, including vases, jars, vertical planters, hanging globes, tabletop greenhouses, and more, into miniature worlds of green . Once you know the basics (the plants, the vessels, and a basic understanding of soil, water, and humidity), you can mix and match for an endless exploration of your own creativity!
The art of terrarium making is back in vogue and better than ever. Growing collections of adorable miniature plants in glass vessels is a great way to bring the indoors out and get back in touch with nature—no matter where you live and what time of year it is. Whether you reside in a tiny apartment, spend the bulk of your hours at an office desk, or just want to be better connected to green, living things, terrariums are the ticket. A wondrous combination of nature, gardening, and home decor, terrarium building and tending is both therapeutic and inspirational.
Terrarium expert and teacher Maria Colletti makes designing your very own interior gardens easy with step-by-step photos of over twenty of her own terrarium designs . Plus, you'll get all the information you need about popular terrarium plant s, such as tillandsias (air plants), orchids, mosses, cacti, succulents, and ferns.
Transform basic glass containers, including vases, jars, vertical planters, hanging globes, tabletop greenhouses, and more, into miniature worlds of green . Once you know the basics (the plants, the vessels, and a basic understanding of soil, water, and humidity), you can mix and match for an endless exploration of your own creativity!
176 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2015
87 people are currently reading
698 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 1, 2021
I would have preferred more and larger pictures for illustration. The book was straightforward in its explanations and instructions but I found it rather superficial.
March 23, 2016
This book has a variety of different terrarium to choose from. The book's clearly understood step-by-step instructions, include visually appealing photos, makes building each terrarium simple. I enjoyed this book more than other popular terrarium books. It provides readers with global resources about buying supplies and plants, and where to find more information.
February 13, 2016
If winter weather has got you down Terrariums: Gardens Under Glass by Maria Colletti might be just the prescription you need to chase the blues. The wealth of information in these seven chapters and resources is designed to serve as inspiration to get you started in Designing, Creating, And Planting Modern Indoor Gardens.
These days terrariums can come in all shapes and sizes. Things have come a long way from the glass bowl with a lid style of terrarium we knew in our youth. In her opening chapter “Terrarium Design” author Maria Colletti shows you how to consider the plants you will use in relation to the vessel the plants will go inside as you create a certain style of environment. Along with plenty of explanation through the text and tip areas, there are numerous colorful pictures to further illustrate the important points.
After taking readers through design, the basics involved with a terrarium, and choosing a vessel to put the stuff into, it is on to “Getting Started” in Chapter Four. This is when she shows you how to put it all together through pictures and detailed instructions. This is an incredibly informative section as she shows you step by step how to construct a terrarium in several very different vessels.
While one could be in a hurry to get started, one should pay a lot of attention to the following chapters which cover all sorts of different plants and their needs as well as maintain the terrarium once you get started. As in the rest of the book, variety is key here and showcase by text and photograph.
An extensive resource guide as well as glossary and a four page index bring this book to a close.
Published by Cool Springs Press, Terrariums: Gardens Under Glass is a visual treasure trove filled with neat ideas. This is one of those books that is done very well and can be a huge help in your quest to recreate a little nature inside your home.
Terrariums: Gardens Under Glass
Maria Colletti
http://www.green-terrariums.com
Cool Springs Press (Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.)
http://www.coolspringspress.com
September 2015
ISBN# 978-1-59186-633-6
Paperback (also available in e-book format)
176 Pages
$24.99
Material supplied by the good people of the Haggard Branch of the Plano Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2016
These days terrariums can come in all shapes and sizes. Things have come a long way from the glass bowl with a lid style of terrarium we knew in our youth. In her opening chapter “Terrarium Design” author Maria Colletti shows you how to consider the plants you will use in relation to the vessel the plants will go inside as you create a certain style of environment. Along with plenty of explanation through the text and tip areas, there are numerous colorful pictures to further illustrate the important points.
After taking readers through design, the basics involved with a terrarium, and choosing a vessel to put the stuff into, it is on to “Getting Started” in Chapter Four. This is when she shows you how to put it all together through pictures and detailed instructions. This is an incredibly informative section as she shows you step by step how to construct a terrarium in several very different vessels.
While one could be in a hurry to get started, one should pay a lot of attention to the following chapters which cover all sorts of different plants and their needs as well as maintain the terrarium once you get started. As in the rest of the book, variety is key here and showcase by text and photograph.
An extensive resource guide as well as glossary and a four page index bring this book to a close.
Published by Cool Springs Press, Terrariums: Gardens Under Glass is a visual treasure trove filled with neat ideas. This is one of those books that is done very well and can be a huge help in your quest to recreate a little nature inside your home.
Terrariums: Gardens Under Glass
Maria Colletti
http://www.green-terrariums.com
Cool Springs Press (Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.)
http://www.coolspringspress.com
September 2015
ISBN# 978-1-59186-633-6
Paperback (also available in e-book format)
176 Pages
$24.99
Material supplied by the good people of the Haggard Branch of the Plano Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2016
July 20, 2022
It's a serviceable book that will teach you how to construct terrariums based on the style of the author.
It is not a difficult read and doesn't offer much in the plant physiology or botanical aspect, but it achieves its goal of teaching the reader how to make different terrariums and serves as good inspiration for those unfamiliar with the practice.
It is not a difficult read and doesn't offer much in the plant physiology or botanical aspect, but it achieves its goal of teaching the reader how to make different terrariums and serves as good inspiration for those unfamiliar with the practice.
June 23, 2023
My review of this book is necissarily colored by my expectations going into it. I am an aspiring terrarium builder who has tried and failed to build terrariums in the past from low budget, locally sourced materials. As such, I went into this book looking for two principle things. First, I wanted to gain deeper technical knowledge of how terrariums work and fail, so that I can figure out why my terrariums died in the past and how to stop it from happening again. Second, I was interested in recommendations on places to buy, not expensive, but maybe nicer quality materials for constructing my terrariums in the future. Noteably, as I have access to social media like Instagram and YouTube (and hell, even just Google), and I fancy myself to have a rather strong aesthetic sense, I was not really looking for a design guide - I would be fine figuring that out myself.
You may be able to see where this review is going now. Maybe it's not fair of me to judge this book based on what I specifically wanted, but this book did fail to deliver on my hopes, because it is mostly pictures of design ideas with limited technical information and resources to provide. If you want to see pictures of different kinds of terrarium builds you can try, this is fine for you - but then again, why do that when you could subscribe to a channel like SerpaDesign or TheGreenMachine? This also isn't to say that the things I was looking for were wholly missing from this book. I did learn a few things about how to buy terrarium appropriate gravel and activated charcoal, and a bit on how to diagnose failing terrariums and how to maintain moisture levels. But this information is mixed irregularly into a lot of fluffy aesthetic prose, and also isn't particularly technical (the author is talking about a lot of different container types in this book, but when talking about moisture and condensation, she rarely specifies which container she's speaking in context to, even though that matters significantly).
Ultimately, I'm walking away from this book feeling like I learned a very small number of useful facts for terrarium building, and like I'm ultimately going to have to figure out my terrarium woes the same way I had to the first time - by trial and error.
You may be able to see where this review is going now. Maybe it's not fair of me to judge this book based on what I specifically wanted, but this book did fail to deliver on my hopes, because it is mostly pictures of design ideas with limited technical information and resources to provide. If you want to see pictures of different kinds of terrarium builds you can try, this is fine for you - but then again, why do that when you could subscribe to a channel like SerpaDesign or TheGreenMachine? This also isn't to say that the things I was looking for were wholly missing from this book. I did learn a few things about how to buy terrarium appropriate gravel and activated charcoal, and a bit on how to diagnose failing terrariums and how to maintain moisture levels. But this information is mixed irregularly into a lot of fluffy aesthetic prose, and also isn't particularly technical (the author is talking about a lot of different container types in this book, but when talking about moisture and condensation, she rarely specifies which container she's speaking in context to, even though that matters significantly).
Ultimately, I'm walking away from this book feeling like I learned a very small number of useful facts for terrarium building, and like I'm ultimately going to have to figure out my terrarium woes the same way I had to the first time - by trial and error.
February 19, 2018
This book was given to me by my mother-in-law, along with a terrarium she had made for me (which I love!). I desperately want to be a good gardener, and I want to take the best care of this terrarium and my other houseplants. I drove through this book in two days. It was actually a very fast read, and there are a lot of pictures, but I felt very proud of making it through a book in so short a time.
Terrariums is an easy read which shares first-hand advice, descriptions of all the tools you'd need, and terrarium recipes. The author, Maria Colletti, sounded like she was straight out of Pinterest, by the way, and used "ever so" as an adverb a surprising and annoying amount of times. Besides that, I would have liked to have seen more established fundamentals and basic rules for creating and maintaining terrariums, but Colletti did mention in the beginning of the book that she wouldn't be sharing research. I think her book isn't meant to be a terrarium bible but more like talking with a friend who's been working with terrariums for a long time and getting to pick her brain about what tips she'd give to beginners. It's all very friendly, honestly.
What were your favorite reads of 2015? What would you recommend for someone needing to read one more classic and one more nonfiction book this next year?
Terrariums is an easy read which shares first-hand advice, descriptions of all the tools you'd need, and terrarium recipes. The author, Maria Colletti, sounded like she was straight out of Pinterest, by the way, and used "ever so" as an adverb a surprising and annoying amount of times. Besides that, I would have liked to have seen more established fundamentals and basic rules for creating and maintaining terrariums, but Colletti did mention in the beginning of the book that she wouldn't be sharing research. I think her book isn't meant to be a terrarium bible but more like talking with a friend who's been working with terrariums for a long time and getting to pick her brain about what tips she'd give to beginners. It's all very friendly, honestly.
What were your favorite reads of 2015? What would you recommend for someone needing to read one more classic and one more nonfiction book this next year?
August 9, 2025
I have read quite a few books on terrariums lately, and so far this one is the best of the bunch. Bright color photographs, with clearly explained directions.
I actually used this book to help save my heart fern, which has been struggling for about six years (they can be quite persnickety). I read that a terrarium is one of the best places to help this plant succeed, and this book helped me do that! I found an old glass water pitcher with a lid at a thrift store for under $10. Worked like a charm!
* I will add that using Fluval Stratum made my plants much happier. It is not mentioned in this book, but is brilliant to help struggling plants or starts.
I actually used this book to help save my heart fern, which has been struggling for about six years (they can be quite persnickety). I read that a terrarium is one of the best places to help this plant succeed, and this book helped me do that! I found an old glass water pitcher with a lid at a thrift store for under $10. Worked like a charm!
* I will add that using Fluval Stratum made my plants much happier. It is not mentioned in this book, but is brilliant to help struggling plants or starts.
March 10, 2021
This was a great book to get me started with terrariums. She tends to focus mostly on open top designs, not so much closed ecosystems which is what I was originally interested in. She had some practical advice that was different from the previous book I read and the YouTube videos I have been watching. It also had some really great design ideas. I had never thought of doing a short-term holiday terrarium, which I hope to try next year.
March 27, 2018
So. Much. Information. Thankfully, there are lots of photos, too... This book will definitely get you started on the right foot if you're a newbie and, if you're more expert, will serve as inspiration for more extravagant designs. The author clearly has a passion for terrariums and this book is more about her experience with creating them.
February 27, 2023
This is a nice terrarium book!
This is a nice little guide to making terrariums. This book talks about various glassware, how to select your terrarium plants, how to put them together, and how to keep them alive. The book includes a variety of terrarium types and information on plants. It's a nice guide to those new to terrariums or wanting to know more.
This is a nice little guide to making terrariums. This book talks about various glassware, how to select your terrarium plants, how to put them together, and how to keep them alive. The book includes a variety of terrarium types and information on plants. It's a nice guide to those new to terrariums or wanting to know more.
June 1, 2025
If you’re new to keeping plants or have any desire to maintain a terrarium long term, this book is not for you.
The author’s focus is primarily on instant gratification and what the consumer will purchase without thought to the long term survival of the plants.
Yes, terrarium is an art form but it is also a science.
The author’s focus is primarily on instant gratification and what the consumer will purchase without thought to the long term survival of the plants.
Yes, terrarium is an art form but it is also a science.
January 8, 2023
Solid introduction to terrariums. Some content was a bit "fluffy" to me and numerous minor editorial things (like using the phrase "I saved the best for last" when describing the second to last item of a list) bumped me down to 3 stars.
October 16, 2018
This was a quick read with some good tips and suggested plants. I may have to buy a copy so I can reference some of her information again.
April 8, 2021
A clear how-to. Now if I could only get my hands on some of these ingredients...
March 13, 2022
This is a much better terrarium book. The list of plants and growing conditions is good as is how to layer soil.Troubleshooting section could have been better.
January 6, 2016
Really great instructional book on terrariums and terrarium design! I really want to be in to this type of crafting/gardening, but I don't really have money for the supplies right now. Hopefully this summer I'll be able to check this book out again and tackle some projects!
September 25, 2015
Remember the fervor for terrariums in the 1970s? Well, they're back and this book makes creating them a breeze. There are tons of ideas about the best plants to use, as well as some fantastic designs. Grow something!
April 18, 2016
A very interesting book with examples of various terrariums as well as step by step instructions on how to make them. The book then goes into air gardens and water gardens as well and follows up with information on suitable plants for them.
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March 1, 2016Some cute ideas for decoration. I like some of the plants suggested an the details for care.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews