A garden in a jar, sealed, that waters itself.
Glass Garden Notes is a shelf of small closed worlds: pickle jars, cookie jars and old lanterns turned into terrariums that fog up in the morning, rain on themselves by noon, and ask for almost nothing for months at a time.
Start with the first jar Something's gone wrong →
Seven jars, in the order you build them
From the empty jar on the counter to the first month of watching it live.
Open or closed?
The single decision that sets everything else: which jars seal, which plants want a lid, and why closed is the easier first garden.
The five layers
Gravel, mesh, charcoal, substrate, plants — what each layer does, how deep, and the one you can skip.
Plants for the jar
Moss, miniature ferns and creepers that love a humid box — and the pretty plants that will rot inside one.
Planting with chopsticks
Planting day: tools from the kitchen drawer, the order of planting, and cleaning the glass before the lid goes on.
Reading the fog
Condensation is the jar talking: how much fog is right, when to crack the lid, and the two-hour rule.
The windowsill trap
Why a sealed jar in direct sun cooks, where terrariums actually thrive, and what a lamp can do in a dark flat.
The jar rule
If you can see it fog in the morning and clear by lunch, leave it alone. Almost every terrarium that dies is killed by care — the second watering, the "just a little sun", the lid off to check. Build it right, then watch.
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