Comparing Terrarium Books

My fascination with terrariums began with Pintrest, which is the mother of all DIY-projects-that-YWD (you won't do) sites (... you won't find this definition in urban dictionary, kids). So in a flurry of interest, I gathered all of the terrarium books I could get my hands on. In all, there were 7 that have been published between 1970 and 2011 which I read and compared. Let's start with telling everyone how to build a terrarium, and then I will review each book.

     The first thing to do when creating a terrarium masterpiece is find a glass container and clean it. Then lay some pebbles one the bottom and sprinkle some charcoal bits on top to reduce the earthy smell later. Then place a filter layer. the easiest thing to use is peat moss, but there are synthetic materials that you can use as well. The next step is the soil. It is suggested to use a very light soil without fertilizers. Finally put your plants in, spray some water in there, and top the container. That's it!

     Maintenance is very simple: if there is a lot of condensation, leave the lid open for a few hours; if no condensation is present, spray some water inside. Typically, you need to water it like this once a month or so, but keep an eye on it since it will vary. 

Now on to the reviews! At the end of this section, I will have a chart comparing my ratings.

Tiny World Terrarium: A Step-by-Step Guide to Easily Contained Life

      by Michelle Inciarrano and Katy Maslow

This was a very comprehensive book on how to form and manage a terrarium while also giving some neat examples. It was very easy to follow and had cool pictures. The only con I found was that it heavily focused on the mosses and said little about other plants suitable for terrariums. I would have preferred a balanced book, but the gorgeous photos make it hard to turn away.


Terrarium Craft: Create 50 Magical, Miniature Worlds
      by Amy Aiello and Kate Bryant
Overall, this book had some valuable information, but their primary goal was to show how to design a terrarium. They have 50 such design examples (I guess  you could get that from the title of the book). A redeeming aspect of the book were the novel (to me) ideas like moss balls and air plants. I feel that this would only be a good supplementary book after you have a better grasp on terrariums, but is not a good beginner's book.

The Complete Book of Terrarium Gardening
     by Jack Kramer
The name says it all. This is one of the more comprehensive books that I looked through. It has great information on types of plants to use, detailed information on how to create a terrarium, and most importantly, what to do when your terrarium fails from death, disease, or insects. Overall, a great book to have. It is a shame that it is out of print, though.

The Terrarium Book
     by Charles Evans
Similar to Kramer's nook, this is comprehensive in many facets. This book makes plant selection pretty easy by listing common plants for each light intensity and temperature range. It dedicates a lot of pages to plant selection, which is nice because you want the plants to stay alive for a long time. The maintenance chapter was also very useful and had a bit more detail on how to fix problems (i.e. bugs and disease) than other books that I read. This was an awesome find and is on par with Kramer's book above. Although an out of print book, it is an excellent book to have. 

The World of Terriums
     by Charles Wilson
This book contains a lot of valuable beginner information. I really liked the index of plants in the back of the book. It had things like growth habit (flowering, grass-like, etc.), temperature, and light requirements that were all neatly arranged in a grid. They were all in their scientific names so it was difficult to recognize them, but after finding one that fits your desired profile, just give it a quick Google search and you should be set. There was also a neat propagation chapter. I already knew how to propagate plants, but if you are a real beginner in the gardening arts, it is very handy to have everything in one book. Overall, it's very awesome. It is beginning to be a pattern that the books I really like are out of print, as this one is.

The New Terrarium
     by Tovah Martin and Kindra Clineff

The book started out wonderfully by describing some other types of containers to use such as cold frames (like a shadowbox). The book continues to exceed my expectations (since most of the modern terrarium books were more or less decorating books). The authors have a deep respect and love for terrariums and the plants they put in them. They do have a decorating section, but it is very brief and by no means the focus of the book. What is nice is that there are a few step by step projects in the back of the book to get you started. If you don't want to go through the hassle of getting older books, then I suggest getting this one. It is not as comprehensive as Wilson's or Kramer's, but it's darn close.

Gardens in Glass Containers
     by Robert Baur
Unlike the earlier books I talked about, this is the only one that isn't strictly about terrariums.
The bulk of the book is still about terrariums, but it also includes aquatic plants and dried arrangements. Baur is unique in that he discusses how to prepare any type of terrarium (i.e. bottles, tanks, brandy glasses, etc.) which may not be necessary, but it you were wondering, there is a section devoted to it.Most of the information regarding terrariums is similar to the other old books, so it's a pretty good choice, but just isn't my top choice.

Now on to the ratings! There are 7 aspects I thought were important (quality of the information on containers, plants, type of soil, drainage techniques, and plant maintenance as well as the quality of the pictures and how easy it is to read). Each rating is out of 5.

I hope this will help some people decide on what book to get. Especially considering the time I put into this. Let me know in the comments if you want me to review any other books and don't forget to send me some pictures of your finished terrariums!