Thomas Walter

In 1960, David Latimer placed a spiderwort plant in a big glass bottle with a bit of water and sealed it. He only opened it once in 1972 to add more water and then closed it forever. This little garden in a bottle has been growing for over 60 years. How does it work? The garden in the bottle is a self-running ecosystem. Bacteria in the soil eat the dead plants and turn the plant's oxygen into carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. The bottle is essentially a small model of Earth.