
A Sealed Garden That Was Watered Once in 53 Years (2017) - hairytrog
https://biologicperformance.com/sealed-bottle-terrarium-garden-watered-once-53-years/
======
phillc73
After initial transportation failures, sealed terrariums were used by Robert
Fortune to send stolen tea seedlings from China to India,[1] thus helping the
British to break the nineteenth Century Chinese monopoly on tea production.

[1]
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00H9J1AM2/](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00H9J1AM2/)

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Funny wording to use "break" for IP theft, it looks different when the British
do it compared to when the Chinese do it, doesn't it?

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julienreszka
There's a difference between ressources and IP.

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sudhirj
Not for cultured saplings. A plant growing in the forest is a resource, a
carefully bred strain cultured over hundreds or thousands of years is
nationalized IP.

~~~
markdown
> a carefully bred strain cultured over hundreds or thousands of years is
> nationalized IP

Is that just your opinion, or is there an internationally accepted legal
framework around that? Could you perhaps post a link where I might learn more?

~~~
sudhirj
Just opinion... this kind of theft predates current law, though. Think of the
silkworm smugglers [1] as well. Some crops an agri/zoo cultures were
considered strategic resources and tightly controlled by the state. No idea
what current international law says about stuff like this.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_silkworm_eggs_i...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_silkworm_eggs_into_the_Byzantine_Empire)

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bjackman
I wonder if part of what makes it work is luck of the draw wrt. the microbial
life that was present at the start. You need stuff that will break down the
dead plants at a good enough rate but nothing that competes for resources or
produces anything toxic to the plant. Or maybe that's a typical microbial
makeup for sample of gardener's compost?

~~~
vvdcect
Yeah I don't know if you noticed the white patch on the lower part of the
terrarium, that to me looks like a mix of the plants root system and
mycorrhizal fungi, so there should have been microbes present within the soil
when it was first planted.

~~~
jandrese
There would have to be microbes in the soil breaking it down and releasing CO2
so the plant could get its carbon.

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oarfish
> In fact, more than a century has passed and David’s sealed bottle garden is
> still thriving and robust as can be.

I'm not sure the author knows what a century is.

~~~
noonespecial
53 Years. Almost certainly meant to include the word "half".

~~~
14
That is a much better theory then mine that AI wrote the article and just
messed up a couple details.

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chadcmulligan
Any one know what sort of jar that is? and/or where to buy one?

Edit: its called a demijohn if anyone else was curious, used for making wine

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pbhjpbhj
They're also called, or very similar to, "carboys". Google says they're called
"jimmy johns" in USA, but I've no knowledge of that.

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mohaine
demijohn are a bottle in a wicker wrapping. Once you get to large glass
bottles like this breakage is real issue so it makes sense to wrap them so
they can be moved with less chance of breakage. Note that if you do build one
of these, be VERY careful moving them as they can break with a small slip and
the large pieces of glass can easily cut tendons, leading to lots of long term
issues.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Demijohn is just a large glass bottle in en-gb usage, usually with straight
sides and circular handles, holding just under 5 litres. Example:
[https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-demijohn-container-
glass-4...](https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-demijohn-container-
glass-45l/p/0022556).

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audiometry
Are there any canonical guides to building a jar-rarium? Lots of crappy
YouTube videos but nothing very thorough and complete.

~~~
polyvisual
This guy's youtube channel is a great resource for terrariums
[https://www.youtube.com/user/SerpaDesign](https://www.youtube.com/user/SerpaDesign)

~~~
audiometry
oh yeah, these are nice videos, just watched a few.

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AKifer
Did anyone try introduce an animal in such a closed system, insects for
instance. Does it self sustain ?

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dmux
On a larger scale, wouldn't this be Earth?

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ASalazarMX
Complete with the "put it in a spot with enough sun light". Except the
atmosphere leaks a little
[http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cluster_watc...](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cluster_watches_Earth_s_leaky_atmosphere)

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julienreszka
I just don't think there is enough evidence to believe his story.

~~~
reaperducer
People have been building terraria for centuries. You can buy all shapes and
sizes in stores, some with fish. Though the fish ones probably don't last
after the fish dies.

Gardening is one of the many areas of life where the best information and the
bulk of information is offline.

~~~
TremendousJudge
>Gardening is one of the many areas of life where the best information and the
bulk of information is offline.

I've come to realize this is true, but why?

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freeflight
Gardening/farming is pretty much as far removed from the urban, heavily tech-
influenced lifestyle most netizens live in as it can be.

But imho this is about to change, lots of people burning out on the rapid
cycles and inherent unsustainability of living the "always online city
lifestyle" and thus looking for ways to escape to something more natural in
the form of gardening or even farming.

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hairytrog
I'm thinking we each make our own little ecosystem, maybe a half an acre would
be enough. Maybe make it double walled, just in case, and then say screw it to
everyone else as climate change and various other big things occur on the
outside.

~~~
wongarsu
You might be interested in Biosphere 2 [1], a 3 acre hermetically sealed dome
stucture designed to house about 8 people with an ecosystem to provide them
with everything they need to survive.

They didn't quite get oxygen and food production to the required level, but if
you add another acre or so it should work. With renewed interest in moon and
mars colonies somebody is bound to revive that line of research.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2)

~~~
zeristor
The first experiment was hampered by them not realising the cement needed CO2
to cure, to be honest I would have halted the experiment to find out what the
issue was then restarted it. Although they might not have realised this at the
time, but then they weren't really testing a proper closed system.

It would have been useful if they were able to test a closed system without
the cement sucking up the CO2.

~~~
tgb
Isn't cement a major CO2 emitter?

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ch4s3
The production of cement is, but curing cement fixes CO2. It just doesn't fix
enough to offset the production.

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Doubl
I wonder what other life forms are inside that jar apart from the plant. Is
the tiny sealed world a paradise or a hell for them?

~~~
vvdcect
If the soil was taken from the garden there should be hexapods within it.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtail)

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pavel_lishin
Hm, hexapodia as the key insight?

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ansible
Is that a reference to A Fire Upon the Deep?

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pvaldes
I'm sceptical about the sealed part.

Anybody having Tradescantia fluminensis knows that is a very easy plant to
grow. It stores water in its stems so is relatively dry resistant, but it
grows unlimited unless you clip it. So either there is some kind of autoprune
system in the bottle, or somebody is opening the seal and clipping it. In that
case there is a external source of water in the air in form of vapor.

> Did anyone try introduce an animal in such a closed system, insects for
> instance. Does it self sustain?

Unlikely with this species. Most animals are unable to eat it. In any case
this is closer to a monoculture than to a real ecosystem between one plant and
some fungus (needed to remove the dry parts and stems if we assume that there
is not human intervention to clean the surplus).

~~~
kaikai
I have several terrariums and the plants self-limit when they hit the glass. I
have never needed to prune or trim them. When they get too dense they start
dying back from moisture issues, and it self-regulates into a pretty stable
loop.

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pvaldes
What species?

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tombozi
It's not a miracle, it's self-sustaining. Mine has been going strong for 1+
year now. I got it here:
[https://www.ferrarium.nl/](https://www.ferrarium.nl/)

~~~
weberc2
Would be interesting to study the evolution of the organisms contained therein
over very long timescales.

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oftenwrong
Can plants be used to clean pollutants from the atmosphere in a space station?

Maybe not:

[https://www.gardenmyths.com/garden-myth-born-plants-dont-
pur...](https://www.gardenmyths.com/garden-myth-born-plants-dont-purify-air/)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/indoor-p...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/indoor-
plants-clean-air-best-none-them/584509/)

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nitrogen
It seems like as a rough approximation your plants would need to grow at least
as much biomass as you eat every day.

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jacobush
"Space in space" is cramped only because we put up too small living quarters.
But an inflatable balloon only for growing things in it need not be especially
rigid or robust. It wouldn't even have to be rigidly fixed to the living
quarters, it could float a bit to the side connected only by flexible tubing.

~~~
fox8091
That's not really true thanks to micrometeors. They'd have it ripped to
shreds, and if it was connected to the main habitation units, would remove the
air from there too.

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0xffff2
This isn't a new idea [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Expandable_Activity_Mo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Expandable_Activity_Module)

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ehnto
Cody's Lab recently put together a sealed terrarium meant to emulate the
conditions of the Carboniferous period, and although it's going to be slow
going I am still excited to see how it progresses.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgAbxP9SHQY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgAbxP9SHQY)

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stcredzero
There should be more funding and research on self contained, or nearly self
contained ecosystems. The cost is modest on the larger scheme of things, but
the potential benefits in the next half century could well be tremendous.
Also, doing such research here on Earth may well save the lives of many
pioneers in the coming decades.

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yitchelle
If there was a plant that is not green, would it have last as long? Just
wondering if the photosynthesis is only exclusive to green plants.

~~~
YayamiOmate
What other plants are there? Photosynthesis is performed in/by chlorophyll
which is green, so it's hard to not be green.

There is a puprle earth hypothesis and Haloarchaea, which is based on witamin
A related molecule for photosythesis, but those are not classified as plants.

The current theory for inception of plants is that one cell captured another
chlorophyllic one and created symbiotic organism, which later evolved into
multicelluar plants. So by definition plants should be green for phototrophy
("feeding on light"), until it would somehow evolved chlorophyllic cells, but
ot seems they are older than plantae themselves.

Btw. similar theory exists for mitochondria and eukaryota, that's why we speak
of my mitochondrial DNA.

~~~
vincebowdren
A few plants are parasitic on other organisms, and have given up
photosynthesis. An example is the Bird's-Nest Orchid
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neottia_nidus-
avis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neottia_nidus-avis)) which is parasitic on
a woodland fungus.

But these examples are unusual; the vast majority of plants get their energy
the normal way, through photosynthesis using cholorophyll.

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tempodox
I have to try this. Maybe I'll finally get a plant to survive longer than a
year in my burrow.

~~~
pvaldes
Everything can be learned, and everybody can culture a plant but only a few
can culture any plant. Maybe you need just some orientation.

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Nanocurrency
Definitely adding this to my DIY list. I need to build myself a terrarium now!

~~~
pvaldes
Is not so easy and stable as you could think. The trick there is in the
species, that is a survivor, clonates itself from tiny fragments and is
invasive.

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chrismeller
So then I’m the only one who did this in elementary school, then?

Soil from the yard, a couple of plant clippings, water... and seal it. I find
it kind of surprising how excited the comments here are when 7 year olds
around the world have done this same experiment.

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sophacles
I think the point isn't "look new terrarium tech was just invented". I think
it's "this terrarium lasted 47 year sealed".

Given that the terrarium guides I could find with a quick google suggest
opening the vessel for gas exchange and fresh water every 4-8 weeks (depending
on guide and plant type), the 2444 weeks reported here seems to be a long
time.

~~~
chrismeller
Admittedly I’ve never done any research into it, but I’ve never heard anything
of the sort. Close it up and see how long it lasts. I know that mine lasted
for well over a year before my mom finally demanded we toss it because she was
tired of it taking up space.

Honestly, it’s just a small Biosphere. I don’t really understand why you would
expect one to work and the other not to.

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toss1
Because as the time is extended, the possibility for things to get critically
out of balance increases, possibly exponentially.

This is not merely sitting a coated steel bar on your shelf and expecting it
to not rust. It is a highly dynamic cycle of multiple feedback loops and
organizims, especially the soil microbiota. Any of it goes off, and the whole
thing could collapse, and it could take a long time for that to go critical.

In this very example, he presumably determined tha tit needed water after
several years, but added enough to balance to system so it lasted in a sealed
condition for 47 more years.

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lqet
Very cool! However, I found this remark strange:

> some like Bob Flowerdew (organic gardener) thinks that “It’s wonderful but
> not for me, thanks. I can’t see the point. I can’t smell it, I can’t eat
> it,”.

What kind of an argument is that?

~~~
iainmerrick
Not an argument at all, but a discussion of taste?

I think it’s quite clear. As a gardener, who values close contact and
interaction with plants, he doesn’t see the point of plants that are
permanently behind glass.

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drinane
It would be cool if that was for an apartment

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MintChocoisEw
thats crazy cool!!

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wallace_f
>more than a century has passed and David’s sealed bottle garden is still
thriving and robust as can be. With thriving plant life, despite not watering
it since 1972.

>David planted the terrarium back in 1960

I'm so annoyed by the above. Is this article written in 2060?

~~~
V-2
Pretty sure they meant "more than half a century".

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bloudermilk
> In fact, more than a century has passed and David’s sealed bottle garden is
> still thriving and robust as can be. With thriving plant life, despite not
> watering it since 1972.

"more than _half_ a century" ?

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ghayes
The original terrarium was constructed and sealed in 1960, according to the
article, and only watered since then once, in 1972.

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nemasu
I'm still confused, a century is 100 years right? 1960 + 100 = 2060. Am I
missing something?

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rangibaby
What's half of 100?

/EDIT nvm, I got confused. I guess whoever wrote the article did too

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nemasu
50, but...how is that relevant? The article doesn't say half.

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libria
[2017]

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dang
Thanks! Added.

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Doubl
I wonder if they're are any plastics in there

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JoeAltmaier
Seen this before. Simplest answer: don't believe it. That cork in the top
looks new. And very, very removable.

And if you still want to believe it, without evidence, then I have some
property in Florida to sell you.

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reaperducer
There's several hundred years of evidence in the real world. Millions of
similar terraria have been built around the world for centuries.

The real reason this one is newsworthy is because nobody knocked it off the
table and shattered it in 50 years.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
ooooorrrrr...they've all been opened. None of them lasted as long as they say.
Because none of them are secure.

