The workshop
One long bench on Gloucester Road, and a shelf of jars waiting their turn.
Terrarium Supply Co. has been two people, a bench and a north-facing window since 2019. We plant on Mondays and Tuesdays, run workshops on Saturdays, and spend the rest of the week cutting moss, packing boxes and answering emails about foggy glass.
How a jar gets made
Charcoal, soil, moss, springtails, lid. Then two weeks of waiting.
Every jar is built the same way, by hand, in the order below. The building takes about forty minutes. The waiting takes a fortnight, and it is the part most sellers skip.
01
Charcoal, then soil
A 2 cm layer of horticultural charcoal keeps the base sweet, then our own mix: coir, loam, bark fines and a little grit.
02
Moss is laid, never pushed
Pressed flat with a tamper so the rhizoids can grip. Pushed-in moss sulks for months and then browns from underneath.
03
A pinch of springtails
Tiny, harmless and doing a job: they graze on anything that dies back, so the glass stays clear without chemicals.
04
Sealed, dated, and rested
The lid goes on with the planting date on the base. Every jar then sits on our shelf for two weeks before it can be sold, so anything that was going to go mouldy does it here rather than in your kitchen.
Where things come from
Three suppliers, two of them within a mile.
- The glass is blown by a small studio in Bedminster, 1.5 miles away
- The stoneware trays and cork mats are thrown and cut by a potter two streets over
- The moss is grown outdoors in Somerset and cut the week it is posted
- Cork comes from a supplier in Porto — the one thing we cannot source locally, and we would rather say so than pretend
Blown, not moulded
Thicker walls hold humidity steadier, which is why ours cost more than a kitchen jar.
Thrown by hand
No two trays are the same size. We measure each one before we pair it with a vessel.
Nine varieties
Grown on shade netting, cut to order, never lifted from a wall or a wood.
Card and paper only
Moss travels in damp paper. The box, the tape and the label are all recyclable.
Saturdays
Eight people, one bench, two and a half hours.
The workshop is the front half of the shop, cleared back to a long table. You pick a vessel from the shelf, plant it yourself with someone beside you, and seal it at the end. Everyone leaves with a jar they made and the card telling them what to do for the next six months, which is nothing. Sessions run at 10am and 2pm and finish with tea.
Bring nothing
Tools, aprons, moss and vessels are all here. Comfortable clothes you do not mind getting damp.
Take home a jar
Usually 18–24 cm, sealed, dated and boxed for the bus ride home.
Groups of six or more
Weekday evenings are yours if you book a fortnight ahead. We have done birthdays, leaving dos and one office team that built nine.
If you cannot come
Vouchers last twelve months and transfer to whoever you like. The kit is the same planting, at your own kitchen table.