Terrascaping

Terrascaping - Make Something Beautiful Out of Your Terrarium!

Terrascaping is the artful interplay of flora, fauna and decorative materials in a terrarium. The goal is to create a unique piece of nature within your own four walls.
The terrarium serves as the canvas for creative, nature-inspired arrangements of rock and wood (the so-called hardscape), soil and plants. The still fairly new term terrascaping specifically emphasizes the aesthetic, creative aspect of the terrarium, just like aquascaping does in aquaristics. That's what the ending "-scaping" stands for, borrowed from "landscaping", the design of gardens, parks and landscapes.

Terrarium keeping is oriented toward the different habitat types and climate zones of the earth, primarily to meet the species-specific habitat requirements of the animals, but also to plant the enclosures in a suitable and attractive way. Accordingly, there are different types of terrariums, and it makes sense to follow them in terrascaping as well - apart from special forms such as the outdoor terrarium or the formicarium (ant terrarium). The styles of terrascaping can therefore also be roughly divided into the categories aquaterrarium, (rain)forest terrarium and dry terrarium.

The aquaterrarium, also known as a paludarium, has an aquarium section and a terrarium section. A wide variety of biotopes can be recreated in paludariums. Variants such as the rivarium or the riparium aim to recreate streams or riverbank landscapes as faithfully as possible.
For the design, submersed aquatic plants, floating plants, marsh plants and mosses can be combined with terrestrial plants or with tropical climbing plants and epiphytes, such as aroids or bromeliads like tillandsias, neoregelias and vrieseas, to name just a few. Thanks to the diversity of nature itself, there are hardly any limits to your creative freedom.

The rainforest terrarium has a special charm, with a phenomenal abundance of different plant species and endless possible combinations. Its theme is the regions of the earth with the highest rainfall and no truly dry seasons.

Daytime temperatures between about 25 - 32 °C and a high humidity of at least 70 to 80 % characterize the habitat of the lowland rainforest around the equator. Tropical montane rainforests and cloud forests have cooler temperatures depending on altitude and often look enchanted thanks to lush growths of moss and lichen. Temperate rainforests can look similar to these year-round humid and cool montane tropical forests. They grow in some very humid regions outside the tropics, with warmer and colder seasons.
Alongside a wide variety of climbing plants, the tropical jungle is especially characterized by epiphytes on the branches and trunks of the trees. Among them are countless orchids and ferns in all tropical regions and, especially in the South and Central American tropics, many bromeliads. Rock-dwelling plants, so-called lithophytes, grow on rocks. In colder zones, they are mostly represented by mosses, lichens and algae; in warmer climes, many higher plant species are added. Often the same species grow both on rock and as epiphytes on trees. Lithophytic species are especially common in the spray of waterfalls.
Terrestrial plant species in the herb layer of tropical and subtropical rainforests green the understory. Such shade plants often display attractive leaf shapes, colors and patterns, such as silvery spots and stripes or a bluish iridescence.

"Forest terrarium" can stand for anything in between a rainforest terrarium and a dry terrarium. Many different semi-humid to semi-arid forest types can be recreated, such as deciduous tropical forests with rainy and dry seasons, semi-humid tropical montane forests, subtropical moist forests with humid summers and cool, dry winters, or evergreen sclerophyll forests with summer drought and a moist, cool winter season. The forest landscapes of the temperate zone with its cold winters can also be a theme, but tropical and subtropical terrascapes are of course easier to realize in heated indoor spaces.
Typically, temperatures in forest terrariums range between about 20 and 25 °C, and the humidity should be roughly between 50 - 70 %. Many orchids, tillandsias and epiphytic cacti especially benefit from a drier, cooler winter phase, which increases their willingness to flower, since they often originate from highlands on the edge of the tropics or from the subtropics. Even in the canopy of tropical rainforests, there is at times a dry, sunny microclimate despite heavy rainfall, which is why many epiphytes are distinctly adapted to dry conditions.

If you're planning a terrarium with tropical or subtropical plants, climate factors such as light, temperature, humidity and ventilation should roughly resemble the conditions in their native habitats. If you also plan to keep terrarium animals, however, these parameters should primarily depend on the animals and be monitored accordingly.
Creativity is called for when planting tropical and subtropical forest terrariums. Robust plants that stay small and are as decorative as possible are recommended. Orchids look especially impressive in combination with small ferns, Ficus, Begonia or some Philodendron species. Root climbers such as Ficus pumila wind around tree trunks and climb up them. Mosses complement the terrarium with their varied appearances and a particularly positive influence on the microclimate.

The dry terrarium is themed around arid and semi-arid regions and can be set up as a desert, semi-desert, steppe or savanna habitat. Desert terrariums are rather sparsely planted. Wood and stones form a central element of this style. Robust, drought-tolerant plants are the first choice here, such as the great variety of cacti and other succulents, but also various bromeliads. Of these, the gray tillandsia species are particularly recommended. Thanks to their densely arranged, larger trichomes, they are more drought-tolerant than green tillandsias. In our Terrascaping category, creative minds will get their money's worth. Here you can not only buy a terrarium - the interplay of diverse and colorful terrarium plants combined with artfully arranged hardscape opens up completely new dimensions of design.