A Pathos Growler Jungle

If you’ve been to our studio, you know I’m on a mission to turn the place into a jungle, hanging growlers overflowing with pathos from the sprinkler pipes.

Simply cut open a bunch of growlers, plant the plants, then hang them up. Can’t take more than five minutes, I thought. Yeah right! Here’s what it really takes - my recipe if you will:

1. Grab some cuttings from an obliging plant (I usually start with three or four per growler) and put them into a vase, topping up or replacing the water as needed. Roots will grow quite quickly.

2. Collect growlers (ideally a few extra, see note below) - you can buy them, or like me, look for people giving them away on pages like Facebook Marketplace. Either means missioning to pick them up, but the latter might require a few more trips, picking up a few here, a few more there.

3. Choose your cutting method - there are many how-to videos online. I like to use a Dremel cutting tool, so here’s how I do it:

   1. Firmly attach a manual glass cutter to something solid, like a table leg, so that it reaches the growler at just the right height.

   2. Standing the growler on the floor, press it into the cutter’s blade, twisting it around, so that the blade scratches a level groove into the growler. By using the floor as your base, you are sure to keep the growler level and the grove at an even height.

   3. Go round a few times to make a good solid groove. Press firmly but not too hard - glass cannot be pressure-cut, like you would press a knife through an apple, but rather the aim is to scrape and wear away.

   4. Attach a glass-cutting wheel to the Dremel, and on a medium speed cut along the groove, applying almost no pressure. Remember, the aim is to grind, not to push through, and this takes a lot of time and patience . You’ll find the glass is thicker in some places, and thinner in others. This is also when the glass likes to crack - as long as it’s on the waste side (the bottle neck you are discarding), you’re in luck. Sometimes it cracks open along the groove, saving you having to grind all the way through. If not, it’s normal to take 20 minutes for a large growler.

   5. Once the bottle neck pops off, use the flat edge of the blade to very gently grind down the sharp edges

4. Grab some Jute string and create your hanger. Make it as simple or complex as you like, so long as it’s sturdy enough to hold a heavy pot full of wet soil and the growler can’t slip out.

5. Once the pathos have grown a good bunch of roots, plant them in the growler - usually after a month or so.

6. Water well the first time, to ease the plant from the pure water it’s become used to, to the soil it is in now

7. After that, be careful not to overwater - we haven’t put any holes in the bottom of the growler to let excess water drain, since we don’t want it to drip down from wherever we’re hanging it.

This is how I have fixed my manual glass gutter to make the initial groove. It can be pushed up or down depending on the growler’s size.

Note: The growlers love the snap and break in the cutting process, usually quite suddenly, and not unlike just as you’re about to finish the cut. So I always have a few spare, and I don’t allow myself to get too attached to the one with my favourite brewery’s design, until it’s safely cut and planted.

So there you have it - it actually takes quite some effort to make a hanging Pathos Growler, let alone a jungle of them. But anything worth having is probably worth spending a bit of time and energy on. Pathos survive almost any abuse and thrive in low light conditions. So once in place, they are easy to look after.

And yes, if you want to save yourself the trouble, I’ve made a few spare. Here they are, lined up, looking for a new home.