Autumn is the season where a terrarium (or bottle garden) suddenly makes a lot of sense. It gets dark early, the heating goes on, and most houseplants start sulking. A terrarium keeps going. And with a few mini pumpkins, some moss and a warm light behind the glass, you get a bit of autumn indoors without buying a whole bunch of new deco.
In this post we go through open and closed autumn terrariums, real versus fake pumpkins, why succulents are the easiest autumn choice, and how to turn the whole thing into a Halloween terrarium for a few weeks.
The difference matters more in autumn than in any other season, because the air in your house changes.
A closed bottle garden with a cork lid makes its own water cycle. Water evaporates, condenses on the glass, runs back into the soil. In autumn and winter that is a real advantage: your radiator dries out the air in the room, but inside the glass the humidity stays high. Ferns, fittonia and moss keep their colour while the rest of your plants go dull.
What a closed terrarium does not like: anything organic that rots. That is the whole issue with real pumpkins, more on that below.
An open terrarium is the opposite. Air moves through it, moisture escapes, the soil dries out between waterings. That makes it the right home for succulents and cacti, and it also means you can put loose autumn deco inside and swap it whenever you feel like it. Pumpkin in October, pine cones and a small deer in November, done.
If you want one terrarium that carries you through the whole autumn and winter, an open one with succulents is the practical answer. If you want green that stays lush without you doing anything, go closed.
Both work, but not in the same place.
Real mini pumpkins look great. The colour, the ribs, the little stem, nothing artificial comes close. Use them in an open terrarium only. Sit them on top of the moss or gravel rather than pressing them into wet substrate, and give them a dry spot so the underside can breathe.
Expect roughly four to eight weeks out of a small ornamental pumpkin indoors. Check the base every week. As soon as you see a soft patch or the first white fuzz, take it out. In a closed terrarium a real pumpkin will mould within days, and that mould will not stay politely on the pumpkin. Do not do it.
Our mini pumpkin set of 3 is sized 6 to 8 cm, which fits inside most terrarium jars without crowding the plants out.
Artificial mini pumpkins are the answer if you want a closed terrarium with an autumn look, or if you simply do not want to check on anything. They do not rot, they do not sweat, and you can pack them away in a box and use the same ones next year.
One thing to watch: cheap foam pumpkins in a closed jar can get a film of condensation on them and look grubby. Ceramic, resin or a well finished polyfoam pumpkin holds up better behind glass.
If you would rather not source pieces separately, we build two autumn kits with the plants and mini pumpkins already matched:
Both come as a DIY kit, so you plant it yourself. That takes about half an hour and is the best part.
Succulents get overlooked in autumn because everyone reaches for moss and ferns. But they suit the season well for a boring, practical reason: your house is dry and dark, and succulents mind that less than tropical plants do.
A few things to know for autumn and winter:
Kits we make for this, all open terrariums:
Already have a terrarium standing around? The succulent refill and starter kit gives you three succulents plus substrate, which is the cheapest way to bring an empty jar back to life for autumn.
The trap with seasonal deco is scale. Most autumn deco is made for a table, not for a 20 cm jar. Anything you put in a terrarium has to be small enough that the plants still read as plants.
What works:
Keep it to two or three elements. A terrarium with eight things in it stops looking like a landscape.
Halloween is a nice one for terrariums, because the mood you want is already there. Damp moss, dark green, glass, a bit of gloom. You are only adding the last five percent.
Three things that do the work:
The good part: it is all reversible. Pull the figures out on the first of November, leave the moss and the pumpkins, and you have an autumn terrarium again. Swap the pumpkins for pine cones in December and it carries on.
Everything for this, plants, kits, pumpkins and figures, sits together in our autumn and Halloween collection.
If you want green that looks after itself, go closed with fake pumpkins. If you want to change the deco with the season and keep it simple, go open with succulents. Either way, start with one jar, plant it yourself, and see how the autumn light hits it in the evening. That usually settles it.
Have a look at the full autumn and Halloween range to see what suits your space.
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