Terrain, which is to garden centers what Disney World is to playgrounds, recently hosted its 50th terrarium workshop since opening in 2008. "It is the most popular one we do," says Kedra-Maguire, who notes that the store sold every one of 300 terrariums the staff made at Christmastime.
"Terrariums are adorable," she said.
Workshops of late have been drawing more younger attendees, city-dwellers, and men. The typical gardener demographic remains middle-aged, suburban, and female, a group well represented at Terrain's most recent terrarium class.
Julie Wood of Thornton and Jane Wellbrock of Kennett Square, fellow real-estate agents and friends, remember terrariums from their childhoods.
"My granddad got us into them when I was a child," recalled Wood, who grew up in Worcestershire, England.
"Oh my God! I grew up with them as a kid. Remember the macrame planters of the 1970s?" Wellbrock said.
There's an element of nostalgia in terrarium attraction, then. But there's also something about these self-contained "glass houses" themselves, with their thick lids, sweating plants, dainty objects placed inside just so, that makes mesmerized voyeurs of us all.
Perhaps it's the draw of the small. Dollhouse furniture is a perennial favorite; dwarf varieties of plants, shrubs, and trees have become a huge hit with gardeners.
And, like snow globes and fairy scenes, terrariums project the fantasy of a mysterious, rarefied world suspended in time. We can't stop looking in there.
"When will people stop wanting to make terrariums? Never!" Kedra-Maguire said.
