Garden Survives Sealed For Over 50 Years: Self-Sustaining Ecosystem

I really want to make one of these. Perhaps a few to place around the house. Even if they need a little bit of care. They are so neat!

AwesomeInventions: An 80 year old man who planted a garden in a big, glass bottle 54 years ago and only watered it once in all that time can proudly say amazingly it's still alive. David Latimer, from Surrey, England, last watered his bottle garden (or terrarium) in 1972, before sealing it up completely as an 'experiment', the Daily Mail reported.

The garden has flourished in its sealed environment and is a great example of a closed, but functional, self-sufficient eco-system, comparable to the Earth itself. The little water that was put in the bottle when Mr. Latimer planted it is continually recycled by the plant, while the sunlight it gets through a window and the glass of the bottle is enough to allow it to photosynthesize, and thus, to stay alive. Incredible!

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Mr. Latimer planted the garden on Easter Sunday back in 1960. He put some compost and a quarter pint of water into a 10 gallon glass bottle before planting a spiderwort sprout inside. To actually get the plant inside the bottle he used wires. It grew and grew, and today is as healthy-looking as any plant not shut off from the outside world.

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Mr. Latimer told the Mail the garden was the 'definition' of low-maintenance. All he has ever done, aside from that one time he watered it 42 years ago, is occasionally turned the bottle, to ensure even growth. He had discovered the foliage naturally grew toward the sunlight coming from a window six feet away. 'I've never pruned it, it just seems to have grown to the limits of the bottle.' Long live Mr. Latimer's spiderwort. Perhaps it will become a family heirloom!