BOTTLE TREES MAKE MY HEART SING!

So, about ten or twelve years ago. I decided to quit loving bottle trees and to get a couple of them planted. :0) This is the time of the year I begin to think about what I want planted at the base of my bottle trees to grow around it and have the shadows of the colors dance on the flowers and leaves. It is pretty fun.
For those of you who do not know what bottle trees are, they originated in the South with the slaves who believed that the color in the bottle trapper evil spirits who visited hence no evil was in the house or about. I liked that legend alot and hey, I love color.

One of the bummers about my bottle trees is that I love blue and red bottles. Blue bottles (water) are now coming in plastic. Yuck. I need glass. Sky Vodka and some water companies still have blue bottles. I don't drink that much vodka...like I can't remember the last time I had a screwdriver so that is out. I am still trying to find glass bottles in blue. I bought some red bottles (flavored water) and dumped the water (I like mine plain) and I had the bottles on my tree. They were painted on the inside so they only lasted two seasons and then they chipped away. Bummer.
When I first started, I used green wine bottles but it wasn't that striking and the neighbors all thought I was a lush. My friend who does not drink at all picks bottles out of her neighbors garabage and she has beer bottles both green and brown and wine bottles. Frankly, I think it looks really tacky and I wouldn't want a tree with drinking bottles all over......though I guess that is silly because that is what I have. We hired a family to come and rake our lawn and clean our flower beds and they threw away one of my blue bottles. They didn't "get" the beauty of the bottle trees but wait until my garden is all in bloom. :0)


If you don't have a bottle tree, I highly recommend it if you love color, whimsy and shadows of lovely hues casting their veil of happiness on your flowers!

I had dinner one time with Paula Nadlestern and three other teachers and their husbands and mine and the subject of bottle trees came up. One of the men leaned in and said "Doesn't your neighborhood have a covenant on those types of things?" I don't think he was impressed. :0) Oh well. Now that I am older I can be happy over the things I love and not worry about what people think. My friends love these.