Want to bring green inside your house? Create a mini garden right in your house by using a soda bottle. The main reason to use plastic bottles for plantation is to save maximum water for irrigation. This is the perfect way for growing small, shallow-rooted plants in your house.

Use of Bottle Garden

With high rise apartments and patios people miss to have their part of green. And with the fast life people get less time to take care of their plants and garden. Bottle garden is an option for all those who wish to have greenery around them, but have less time to maintain it. It is easy to create and maintain. It can be used in many ways; some of them are listed below.

• It can be used as miniature eco-system
• Vegetation in dry land
• Home décor

How to proceed

• Take two soda bottles of 1 litre or 2 litres, washed & dried.
• Cut the bottle in half. The bottom of the bottle should remain deep so that it can hold both soil and plant.
• Poke or drill a 1 cm hole in bottle cap. Alternatively, rubber band several layers of aluminium foil across the opening and poke a hole in the foil.
• Thread a thoroughly wet wick strip through bottle top, invert top, and set into base. Wick should reach bottom of reservoir and thread loosely through cap. To be effective, the wick should run up into soil, not be plastered along a side of the bottle and not extend above the soil.
• Fill reservoir with water. Add growing mix until ¼ full.
• Scatter pebbles on the surface of the potting mix then fill with additional potting mix until the bottle is filled with mix.
• Lightly sprinkle water over the surface of the potting mix until water drips from the wick. The potting mix may drop half an inch after watering.
• Place 8 seeds, evenly spaced, on top of the potting mix in a circle that is near the edge of the bottle.
• Cover the seeds and soil with a layer of vermiculite approximately 1 cm deep.
• Lightly sprinkle water to moisten the vermiculite. If you do not have vermiculite, cover the seeds in potting mix.
• Place the bottle on its water reservoir, and tape the shoulder to the reservoir to keep them together.

What to Plant

In a small bottle garden you can plant herbs and other decorative plants like:

• Basil
• Oregano
• Mint
• Coriander
• Orchid
• Cactus
• Small fern

Such kind of gardens require almost no maintenance and is a great way to make a practical or decorative addition to the greenery in your home.

Image Source: Goodshomedesign.com