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Once a staple of the Victorian household, bottle gardens have been around for a long time and are just now making a resurgence in popularity. In his book "Bottle Gardens," Roger Grounds covers all aspects of these glass-encased gardens, from their history to the more eccentric uses such as aquaterraria, fern columns, and propagating plants in sealed bottles.

More importantly, "Bottle Gardens" covers the basics for someone just starting out on their adventure in plants under glass, which is important because bottle gardens have their own set of dos and there are problems and quirks specific to this particular type of gardening. "Bottle Gardens" has chapters dedicated to helping you select the right bottle or other container for your garden while other chapters talk about suitable plants both flowering and foliage-only. The book is fairly comprehensive, although thankfully not wordy.

Grounds includes topics such as what you need to get started, how to clean your bottle garden, growing mixes, drainage materials, and tools of the trade among other things. The sections are broken down into easily-digestible chunks and the instructions are easy to understand and follow.

There aren't many books out there specifically on bottle gardens, and that makes the fact that this one is so comprehensive even more important. It's a great book for a beginner, but has enough trivia, history and miscellany to make it appealing to someone further along in the hobby as well.

"Bottle Gardens" also includes a nice array of black and white diagrams as well as an assortment of full color photos which are great as both guidelines for following along with and as inspiration for materials, selection, and arrangement of plants. For convenience and easy referencing, the book has an index at the end.

Surprisingly, the history of the bottle garden is an interesting read, too, talking about the origin of this creative planting idea and its once common place in the home.