They said it would never happen. Some even said it couldn't be done. But I've done it: I cleaned and replanted Nina's terrarium.
Gone is the Pellionia pulchra. It grew well, it handled drought like a champ, but it choked out everything else, and eventually started choking out itself, even. So behold the next crew:
1: Murraya paniculata (seedling)
2, 4, 6, and 7: Begonia 'Tiger Kitten' cutting (4) and rooted leaves (2, 6, 7)
3: Ctenanthe burle-marxii
5: Episcia 'Coco'
The Ctenanthe has lived with Nina before, and did awesomely; I'm less sure about the other plants. They should all be fine in a terrarium, but I don't know if they'll be fine with the transplanting (which was kind of rough on the Begonias in particular) or the inevitable cricket-nibbling. There's also some danger that the Episcia and Ctenanthe may grow fast enough to crowd out the other plants. It's not even a particularly hypothetical danger, since that's basically what the Ctenanthe did the last time it was in the terrarium.
But we'll worry about all that other stuff later: right now all I care about is that I actually got it cleaned up, after many months of procrastinating, and consequently should be able to enjoy several guilt-free months before I have to do it again. It's surprising how much of a load off my mind that is.
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8 comments:
It looks lovely and I'm sure Nina is thrilled.
Hey, there was an anole under all those plants!
It looks great. :)
Whoever tried to sell terrariums as maintenance-free was full of it! They grow so fast!
I feel for ya...I keep looking at my fish tank and see that I can't actually SEE the fish and think "one day i need to clean the algae"...and never do. Right now it's a giant weight on my shoulders (so what am I doing? Reading plant blogs of course!).
@Tom: When we had fish, we solved that problem by having fish and/or snails that would eat the algae.
CelticRose:
I have that problem too, with my aquarium, though. Have an algae eater, but I don't think s/he spends much time actually eating the algae. Or if s/he does, it grows faster than s/he's able to keep up with.
I had an accidental infestation of snails at one point (brought in with a plant), who did a pretty good job keeping the tank clean, but they all died off a while ago. So did the plant. I've tried Plecostomous before, too, more than once. They die pretty much immediately.
So I use razor blades. (More accurately: if I cleaned the algae off the aquarium walls, razor blades are what I would do it with. In actuality, I don't do this, and the walls are getting kind of opaque.)
Look at Nina! She looks great for an old girl. Mr.S, you're a good mom. Much love to you and yours.
Jenny
I agree with Lisa about maintainence-free terrariums! NOT! lol
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