Requesting Latin translation for "garden in a house/home."

Question

Hi, I'm working on a hypothetical project in Chicago, a city that has the motto "Urbs in Horto" or "City in a Garden."

My project is to put a "garden" into an iconic house. The garden wants to be more like a terrarium - a bubble of glass with plants and perhaps birds. I'm looking for the appropriate title, in Latin, that ideally relates to "Urbs in Horto."

I like the sound of the word "vivarium" and tentatively use the title "Vivarium domum," which I hope means "garden/terrarium in a house/home."

Can someone tell me if the Latin phrase is appropriate? Are there connotations that would be important to adjust? Please let me know.

Answer 1

"Hortus in Domū/Domō" would be my take.

I think "vivarium" has a meaning closer to a park or preserve, while "hortus" is more of a garden at a home (it's also close to "horto", like in the original motto :) ).

Domum wouldn't work because the -um ending is in the accusative case, making it the object of a verb. So it wouldn't translate as "in the house", but "[verb]s the house". For example, if the wind threw the house, then you would use "domum". Here, you should use the preposition "in" and add a noun in the ablative case. You can add "domū" or "domō" for the house since domus is in both the 2nd and 4th declension.

This is just my 2 cents though, other Latin-knowers might have a different opinion. :)

Hope this helps!