I had some sudden inspiration for a mother's day gift, though it probably won't be finished by mother's day. This will be a terrarium, but won't have frogs.
Yesterday we visited a local orchid greenhouse and my mom got a pup from a madegascar staghorn fern. This plant doesn't get as large as her other staghorn fern, but requires lots of moisture. She also was saying all day how much she loves the look of having several different orchids mounted on the same mount, as the grower would take the "leftovers" and put them all on a large slab of treefern, so there were some 12x24" slabs with like 6 species phalaenopsis growing on them and looking really beautiful.
I have a 20 gallon long aquarium just sitting on my back porch doing nothing, so I thought it would be really cool to build it into a vertical terrarium for the staghorn fern and some of our orchids. Since the fern really needs to stay moist, I was thinking of running a small hose up to the top and having a pump in the bottom that will create a little trickle down the back. Would a tree fern slab be a decent mount for this kind of project, or would cork bark be better? I also realize that a misting system would probably be more ideal than a pump, but I'm on a budget, so I want to go with a fairly inexpensive option.
I'll probably build a door onto the side with glass and have a false bottom with water in the bottom and probably plant some of her other house plants that would like a humid terrarium in the bottom.
Yesterday we visited a local orchid greenhouse and my mom got a pup from a madegascar staghorn fern. This plant doesn't get as large as her other staghorn fern, but requires lots of moisture. She also was saying all day how much she loves the look of having several different orchids mounted on the same mount, as the grower would take the "leftovers" and put them all on a large slab of treefern, so there were some 12x24" slabs with like 6 species phalaenopsis growing on them and looking really beautiful.
I have a 20 gallon long aquarium just sitting on my back porch doing nothing, so I thought it would be really cool to build it into a vertical terrarium for the staghorn fern and some of our orchids. Since the fern really needs to stay moist, I was thinking of running a small hose up to the top and having a pump in the bottom that will create a little trickle down the back. Would a tree fern slab be a decent mount for this kind of project, or would cork bark be better? I also realize that a misting system would probably be more ideal than a pump, but I'm on a budget, so I want to go with a fairly inexpensive option.
I'll probably build a door onto the side with glass and have a false bottom with water in the bottom and probably plant some of her other house plants that would like a humid terrarium in the bottom.