53 years old Sealed Bottle Garden was last watered in 1972

This maybe perhaps the smallest oldest surviving ecosystem in the world. A garden in a bottle, planted by David Latimer in 1960 was last watered in the year 1972 before it was tightly sealed. David Latimer, 80, from Cranleigh in Surrey wanted to experiment how long the ecosystem will survive and to everybody’s amazement the little world is still thriving entirely on recycled air, nutrients and water.

The only external thing fed to this bottled-garden was light without which there would be no energy for plants inside to create their own food and continue to grow. Other than that this is an entirely self-sufficient ecosystem, with the plant and bacteria in the soil working together.

The gardener wanted to test if the plants could exist in a self-contained environment. He buried four seedlings in soil in the bottom of a huge 10 gallon jar. Three out of four plant species faded and died, but the fourth, spiderwort plant, flourished and continues to grow. [via nollywoodone]

Read more: http://www.pickchur.com/2013/02/53-years-old-sealed-bottle-garden/#ixzz2JsTxRqpO