Cairns Green Room business expands to new Stratford shop
A unique business dedicated to teaching the art of creating a self-sustaining ecosystem you can almost fit in the palm of a hand has moved to bigger digs in Stratford. How you can make a terrarium.
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A unique business dedicated to teaching the art of creating a self-sustaining ecosystem you can almost fit in the palm of a hand has outgrown its former location and moved to bigger digs in Stratford.
Starting out a home-run business in Yorkeys Knob, Green Room by Manik relocated to Tully Street in Stratford in September and two weeks ago moved again to Stratford Parade, right next door to the Barron River Hotel.
From the new location the business owned by Rebecca Perera and Eranga Liyanage has expanded to create a vegan cafe run alongside the gift shop.
“We wanted a space that had a really nice garden and the idea is to change the garden into a tropical oasis and people can see it change,” she said.
The Green Room regularly runs botanical painting and bonsai workshops, but it has been the Green Room’s terrarium workshops that have piqued the interest of green thumbs throughout Cairns.
A terrarium is a self-sustaining plant ecosystem that’s calibrated to effectively replicate all the necessary natural cycles needed for a plant to thrive.
Popular in Victorian times terrariums fell out of favour before a resurgence in the 1970s. And now plant lovers are rediscovering the joy of creating a mini garden in a bottle.
“Terrariums are really popular, but when I got into making them and selling them they were not really popular, not many people thought you can have a terrariums in Cairns,” Ms Perera said.
“But it has boomed and I stared running workshops. People love the workshops and they create something beautiful and take it home.”
A qualified special needs teacher, Ms Perera emigrated to the Far North from Sri Lanka 15 years ago and took on roles in event planning before embracing her strong creative streak.
“It’s amazing for me, I love art, I am a painter and instead of putting a plant in a pot I create a little garden inside a bottle, it’s almost like art on a canvas but in 3D,” she said.
Ms Perera said the challenge in creating a thriving terrarium was finding the right temperature balance and light.
“If you get that right you only have to water it four times a year,” she said.
“In the fourth year you might have to water it once a year and it needs very little interference from the outside world.
“Some of my terrariums already have little creatures in them and I custom make them for people to put little spiders and insects in.”
The next workshop run from the Green Room will be a tillandsia and moss living wreath course on December 10.
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Originally published as Cairns Green Room business expands to new Stratford shop
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