The Palm Room proffers genius in a bottle

There is a science experiment underway at the Palm Room in Ballard, and it's far more pleasing to the eye than those concoctions you made as a kid. Among the plant store's usual assortment of easy-to-grow greenery, minilandscapes flourish inside cast-off chem-lab bottles and beakers. The Lilliputian gardens are masterminded by Palm Room employee and botanical wiz Lisa Haglund.

Once Haglund settles the plants in the bottles, the containers' narrow openings help to capture heat, forming self-contained tropical ecosystems within. Then all that good stuff you learned back in fifth-grade science class about condensation and precipitation, not to mention chlorophyll and photosynthesis, goes to work. The upshot: No watering is necessary. Just set the terrariums in bright, indirect light (full sun will fry the plants) and watch them evolve.

With specimens such as angel-wing begonias, flame violets and feathery ferns, and carpets of lichen or club or spike moss, the verdant little plantings make great housewarming gifts for even the blackest of thumbs.

For extra-discerning windowsill gardeners, Haglund is in the shop Sundays and will happily make custom terrariums. Prices for the chemistry-bottle terrariums range from $60 to $125; those in more conventional containers sell for $35 to $40; and there's a selection of desert terrariums planted with cacti and succulents on hand for around $40.