The Garden Sealed in a Bottle Since 1972

On Easter Sunday in 1960, a man named David Latimer dropped a few spiderwort seedlings into a huge glass carboy. It was a casual gardening experiment, the kind of thing a hobbyist tries on a weekend.

He didn't have to hunt far for the container. The chemical industry had recently switched to plastic bottles, so big glass carboys, reportedly around ten gallons, were easy to come by in that era.

Latimer added some composted soil and a small amount of water at the bottom. Then he sealed the opening with a greased cork stopper and set the jar in a spot where sunlight could reach it.

Here's where it gets odd. In 1972, he opened the bottle once to add a little water, then sealed it again and, by his own account, never touched it afterward. No watering, no pruning, no fresh air.

The bottle isn't truly cut off from the world, though. Sunlight passes through the glass and powers photosynthesis, which lets the plant make food from the carbon dioxide trapped inside with it.

The water is recycled too. Leaves release moisture that condenses on the glass and drips back into the soil, so the jar runs its own tiny rain cycle, year after year, with nobody in charge.

One caveat: the story rests mostly on Latimer's own account, repeated widely in the press. Snopes rated it true, though some sources differ on details like how many times it was watered, and nobody has confirmed the plant's status today.