All In The Family: Maine Mother & Son Charged in Massive Drug Bust
Make Your Own Terrarium
If you want to learn how to make your own terrarium that looks great and is easy to maintain then we'll show you how! Just follow these simple steps and you're on your way to having your very own self sustaining garden ecosystem that you can keep in your house.
You will need
How to make your terrarium:
Step One
First, you will need to fill the bottom of your glass jar with a layer of pebbles, this helps with drainage and moisture.
Step Two
Add a small handful of activated charcoal into the Terrarium. This helps to filter and purify the water and stops it from smelling.
Step Three
Next, you need to add some moss. This acts as a barrier to stop all the soil from going to the bottom of the jar.
Step Four
Now add the soil on top of the moss, you're going to bury the plants into the soil so make sure you put in enough to cover the roots. The soil provides nutrients for the plants and these nutrients are constantly recycled as the plants continue to grow.
Step Five
Bury your plant into the soil you've added to the terrarium. (You may need to use some long tweezers to do this).
Step Six
Finally, add some water to it to keep the soil moist then seal the jar. As long as the jar is sealed tight you don't need to water it again because the terrarium creates a small enclosed water cycle. Both the plants and soil in the terrarium release moisture and water vapour. This condenses against the walls of the terrarium and falls back into the soil to be used again!
The Rare Five-Keeled Spiny-Tailed Iguana Of Costa Rica
Today we discuss one of the rarest reptiles in Costa Rica that happens to resemble one of the most common reptiles in Costa Rica. I'm speaking of course about the five-keeled spiny-tailed iguana.
This lizard has a few names in both English in Spanish. In English, it's either the five-keeled spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura quinquecarinata) or the dwarf spiny-tailed iguana. The Tico names are pretty much Spanish translations of those two, garrobo de cola espinosa and garrobo enano. If the name garrobo catches your eye, that's because that term most frequently describes the black spiny-tailed iguana, another member of the Iguanidae family that calls Costa Rica home.
The regular garrobo, the black spiny-tailed iguana, is one of the most common reptiles in Costa Rica. If you're in Costa Rica and you're reading this article, stop right now and go outside and look around. There's a pretty solid chance that you could spot a black spiny-tailed iguana. That comes in stark contrast with your ability to go outside and see a five-keeled spiny-tailed iguana. Unless you're enjoying the Tico Times in Santa Rosa National Park, you have virtually no chance of catching a glimpse of one of these lizards. As far as the literature is concerned, the entire population in Costa Rica is located in a few isolated spots in one national park in northern Guanacaste.
As far as a physical description goes, the adults can be most succinctly described as looking exactly like black spiny-tailed iguanas, only a little smaller and with a fatter tail. I'm sure there are a handful of people in Costa Rica that could spot one on a hike and identify it, but for most of us, we'd hardly give it a second glance and assume it's the 10,000thgarrobo we've seen that day.
The one hope most people have of identifying one in the field is stumbling upon a juvenile. Juvenile five-keeled spiny-tailed iguanas are bright green with a pattern of black bars going down their spine. They look sufficiently different from juvenile black-spiny tailed iguanas that someone other than a herpetologist could notice.
There isn't a ton of information about this little lizard to share since it's so hard to find and study. They prefer arid and semi-arid habitats. They excavate burrows under boulders or amongst tree roots and don't tend to venture far from the burrow. Studies in which they inspected the stomach contents of a few individuals found that they mostly eat leaves and fruits, with a few invertebrates thrown in. That's about it.
Why am I bothering to write about such an uncommon and little-known species of iguana? Well, because even though the odds of me recording one with my camera traps have to be close to zero, I recently recorded a juvenile on a farm in Guanacaste. The funny thing about the video is that the juvenile five-keeled spiny-tailed iguana couldn't have triggered the camera to record if it wanted to. It was way too small and distant from the camera.
A hummingbird, what I believe is a plain-capped starthroat, buzzed my camera, triggering it to record and the little iguana just happened to be in the background. The first thing I did was track down someone who studies this little lizard and share the video with them, the second thing I did was write an article so I could share the video with you.
Mini Terrariums In Glass Objects Hidden In Worcester
Ben Newell creates miniature versions of his work in tiny phials
A Royal Mail worker has a growing social media following after hiding tiny terrariums around his home city.
Ben Newell started making jars full of mosses and ferns in 2019 and sells them online alongside his full-time job.
Over the years, the postman has gained 120,000 followers by creating short Instagram videos showing how he puts the plants in various glass containers.
He creates miniature versions of his work in tiny phials and leaves hints on social media about where they are.
The 30-year-old said making terrariums was a "full-time job in itself".
As well as selling the miniature ecosystems, Mr Newell runs workshops so customers can make their own.
The postman believes because of social media, things such as terrariums are becoming more popular.
"People don't really know about this sort of stuff," said Mr Newell.
"With social media becoming far more prominent in people's lives, this sort of stuff is too," he added.
The mini ecosystems have been created inside many different glass objects, including fish bowls.
Mr Newell has made terrariums in small containers such as glass phials and apothecary jars, as well as putting larger plants in fish bowls.
Because of how small some of the terrariums are, he has been able to hide them around Worcester for members of the public to find.
Mr Newell said he was inspired by American Instagrammer Isaac Holzapfel, who hid plants around his hometown of Portland, Oregon.
"He would hide a terrarium, post clues on his Instagram page and then people would go and find it," said Mr Newell.
The reaction from people who have found one of Mr Newell's mini terrariums has been "very positive".
"Bar one, they have all messaged me and re-shared it on social media," said Mr Newell.
The postman is hoping to run his terrarium business full time, as he is currently working both jobs, and described making the plant creations as his "passion".
Comments
Post a Comment