I am getting ready to "re-do" my terrarium. I know there's a dedicated terrarim forum, but it seems really s-l-o-w. When I started the terr forum up a number of years ago it was quite active. The slowness is, I think, unavoidable. Afterall, one can only make so many terrs before running out of room. :) And since they tend to be low maintainence, there again is less reason to constantly be in attendence. So since yours is so super lovely, I am going to ask you because I am not an expert. While flattered, I hope you aren't putting me in the 'expert' category! LOL! There are many folks out there with truly breath taking terrs & vivariums. Its in a 35 gallon aquarium. I cemented all sorts of stuff to the glass in the back and on the sides...mainly cork bark pieces and grapewood pieces etc, and stuffed sphagnum moss into the crevices. My biggest failure (kill me now) was not installing the "octopus" tubing to make the back into a drip wall. Hindsight is always 20/20 as the saying goes. Are you thinking of redoing it, or modifying it or skipping the drip wall? One third of the floor is a layer of gravel overlayed with a layer of treefern shreds about 2 inches thick. The gravel is under water, the treefern isn't. In the middle is a "waterfall" of fossil coral I've collected from Mexico, SOuth FL, etc, and a chunk of driftwood. The other 1/3 is tumbled river rock, neat shells, etc, which are in water. There is a mini-fountain pump hidden there that pumps water over the coral waterfall in the center. That sounds cool! I really wanted a waterfall in one of my terrs but think I'll have to forego it -- it would take up too much room I fear. All I have in there at the moment is a very well established Angraecum orchid, and one bromeliad. Ah, the minimalist/understated approach! :D But I have a ton of stuff out in the greenhouse I could put in there, like Dischidias, Scindapsis, Hoya, other creeping mini-orchids like mini-dends, bulbos, etc. And with a tank that size it won't take much to fill 'er up. LOL It always surprised me how fast an empty tank becomes full. When empty, ya figure "Wow. There's all kinds of room in there." Then you start putting a few items in and all of a sudden it's full and you didn't even do half of what you thought you would. For the vines, would you suggest actually planting little rooted sections in tiny pots of soil and sinking them into the treefern? I will probably also put in some aquarium plants (swords, etc) in the water part. Most vines, assuming they like the terr lifestyle, will likely require frequent trimming. (Just a heads up though you've already thought of this I'm sure.) In a 35 gal, personally I'd still plan on using miniature plants and small-leafed vines. Ferns I've planted in small pots to restrict their spread by rhizomes/runners. If you have a vine that spreads this way a pot might help prevent it fom popping up where you don't want it. Otherwise you could probably just plant the vine directly in the media. As long a the treefern stays moist -- and it sounds like it should -- the vines should root just fine. If the roots would stay confined to the pot there could be some advantages there, but we now they won't be that cooperative! LOL I'd thought about maybe getting a couple of fire belly newts. they're cute lil things! I'm not sure if you would need to do water changes, use a filter, or if you could establish a healthy enough microfauna to breakdown their wastes. [Though I know in a larger tank it can be done] I have a double hood on top, one has a straight Natural Sunlight tube, the other a Flora Glo. I'm not sure if that will prove sufficient for flowering plants. However, lighting is still something I'm experimenting with. Presently using cfls -- 6 in both my 55 gal and 90 gal terrs. Don't know yet if I'll need to put 2 more in the 90. Started off w/ 13W [equivalen to 60 W incandescents] but am shifting them over to 23W (100W equivalents) as they burn out or as the burnouts of other lights in my apt give me places to use the 13Ws. The AVs bloomed under the lower wattage but some other plants haven't. I have stuff like Ludisia, Macodes etc out in the greenouse I could pull from and put a few starts in there. I suspect the Ludisia would get too big for a small tank but it sure couldn't hurt to give it a go. Should it not grow too rambunctiously, the color contrast would be very nice. I'd like to see more photos of your different plants in yours, for ideas. I'll try to get some pics taken and post for ya, Bihai. :) Right now, I hand mist from a spray bottle every day. The temp is pretty much 75F, all the time. You're much more dedicated than I! I should mist daily but generally don't. I'm sure some of my plantss wuold perform better if I did. Well that's all for the moment. Not sure if I adequately addressed you questions, Bihai. Let me know. :)

Sorry to hear that. Mice are so annoying, more so when the cat becomes annoying trying to get the mouse. Where I used to live, we kept getting mice, twice they got into the toaster. The first one was easy to get rid of, dump the toaster upside down over a plastic container and release mouse into park. The second one would not leave. We took the toaster outside and I tried to annoy him into leaving by poking him with a leaf. Nope, just clamped on tighter. Only when I took the toaster apart did he finally realize that we could get him. He took off, little mousie butt bouncing away... I could still see him running even from a surprising distance away. That was one mouse that wasn't coming back. My worst mouse story does involve my cat, however. We had this stubborn rodent that didn't care for peanut butter, evaded my cat, and was just smarter than the avg mouse. Well, one day, we noticed the house smelled... off. Couldn't figure out what it was. The next day, it smelled bad. Still couldn't figure out what it was. I decided to sniff it out, narrowed it down to a bedroom, and randomly decided to lift the corner of the rug. You guessed it, squished mouse. In hindsight, I noticed that the cat, who normally sleeps on that corner of the rug, had been sleeping on the other side of the rug, and studiously avoiding that corner, while pretending nothing was wrong. She had chased the mouse under the rug, sat on it to keep it from escaping, and smothered it, basically did the cat version of "whoops!", and proceeded to act 'normal', all while we unknowingly continued to walk on said rug... It's funny in retrospect, but not whilst cleaning that up. Luckily, she had chased it under both the rug and rug pad, so the $300 rug was not ruined, only the much cheaper rug pad.

The difference in success from year to year involves so many variables. I've been WS for 6 years now, and even with that amount of experience, the differences from year to year, do vary every year. My success rate has always been at least 95%; success defined by me as germination of any kind in a container, not the number of seedlings germinated in each container, I do try to keep records as to where the seeds came from. Such things as trades, commercial seeds and what co. they came from, my own collected seeds. From year to year, not all seed will germinate the same, even for me. I always put out the perennials first. Being in New England, I do have a few months to get them out and get the cold that they need, BUT, 2 years ago we had the strangest winter. 60 to near 70 degrees in January and I know people that had WS their seeds in Dec. and had seeds germinating in January because it was so warm. Those plants didn't survive. I had a late start that winter and ended up not getting my seeds out till mid February and they germinated fine for me, I didn't have any germination too early. So for me, I learned that I can start in mid Feb and it won't be too late for me. BUT, I've also had some serious cold snaps as late as mid May and if I had not covered my tender annuals several nights in a row, I would have lost all of them. So variables are major things to deal with. Weather is a real problem. One year I had 8 inches of rain over 2 days and all my containers where floating in the backyard and the ducks where swimming right beside and around them. Most survived, but there where some that survived the floods, only to be eaten by the invasion of slugs that I had never had before in 29 years living in my home. When we sow seeds that we traded for, we take a risk. Where the seeds collected when they where ripe or where they too early? If too early then the seeds will not be viable and will not germinate for you. The same thing can happen with commercial bought seeds as well. I've had my share of "no shows" in containers from commercial purchased seeds from big name seed companies. I've gotten my money back, but still had no plants from the seeds I planned on. Watering can be a problem, which goes with the weather. this year has been the craziest weather I have seen in 28 years living in my home. We've gone from freezing temps to 80's and 90's, with temps not staying stable for more than 2-3 days at most. 80's and 90's in early April are not normal where I am, but we've had them. We've had frosts long after it should not be happening and may happen again tonight. I've never had to water my containers before the last week in April to the first week in May at the earliest. This year I have had to water every other day since the first week in April. Germination for me has been very eradic as well. Same seeds, same kind of containers, sowed the same day from the same collected, traded or commercial packet and containers are germinating days and weeks apart. My datura are usually about 4 inches tall now, and most have not germinated yet. They need steady 70 degree soil temp to germinate but they haven't gotten it. And, we have not had a lot of rain. lots of days with rainy showers that moisten the top of the containers but not enough to soak into them. Over 6 years of WS, I've learned to just go with the flow. Always expect good germination in terms of container numbers, sow more seeds than I will need in more containers, which usually will cover the beds planted. Assume that some will not germinate and that's just the way mother nature is. Remember that no matter how you look at it, you will have more plants than you would have if you had to buy them and just WS next year and keep going. The only way you will have a sure fire way to have every plant that you want, no matter what, is to buy them. That's far too expensive for me to deal with, considering the number of beds that i have to fill and keep filling. WS does it for me and I wouldn't do it any other way. Fran

Dawn, sounds like you had a good year, all things considered! Our spring/summer garden was fairly pitiful. The only thing that produced was salad greens, walking onions, and garlic. We got only a gallon or ywo of summer squash before it went kaput. Tomatoes never did get it right after the rainy setbacks but we did get a decent flush this fall, enough for several days of good eating. Melons, not so much. Beans & cukes were a complete bust. The fall garden is seems to be doing better. Peas, cabbages, and cukes are showing promise, summer squash has just started putting lots of goodies, and salad greens are up a almost ready to start cutting. Walking onions and herbs are doing well now and I'll be setting out the garlic before much longer. The chiles finally started taking off in late summer so we've had a decent harvest of those and they're continuing. Spring = Fail. Fall = Much Better. Diane