My boss was tossing out a fake plastic plant similar to this one. ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden ) I didn't want it for the plant, but the basket was nice. So I took it out to the dumpster and went to just dump it all out. But it wasn't coming out easily. So I started to tug on the leaves and they slid off their metal rods with ease. Then it hit me! Ah Ha! I know what I'm going to do with you now! So it sat in the garage until I could gather up the pieces needed, which meant a couple of trips to the corner store for some beer. Oh the sacrifices we have to make for garden junk! So, here it is. My first bottle tree! bottle tree ( photo / image / picture from cherylad's Garden )
Well Cheryl--who's the clever cloggs then! I've never seen anything like that. The blue bottles really stand out. You said that they were beer bottles? What kind of beer was that? I thought milk-of-magnesia 'er something. Well the colour really stands out, doesn't it. Will that be for inside or out in the garden/yard?
Thanks Sjoerd, it's Budweiser Light Platinum. Taste pretty good and I just loved the bottles. The labels were easy to peel off too. It will stay outside in the garden.
Cheryl, the color of the bottles is great, but the structure of it needs some balancing. Can you bend the "stem" of the one hanging out the top of the plant a little more upright ( it looks like it is going to topple over any second)? and make the bottles at the bottom look like they are coming from the central stem of the plant. I think you will step back and it looks a little more natural in shape. The leaves on the original plant probably disguised the mis-shapen-ness of the plant.
I was thinking of shortening that one so it doesn't stick out so much. And I can't move or reshape the others. That's how its made. It doesn't bother me not be symmetrical like a real plant. I like stuff being wacky
As long as the shape doesn't "bother" you... me? I worked in a flower shop and symmetry was pounded into our heads. "It just has to have balance", is a rule of thumb, so, as long as it is what you like or want that is all that matters. I do like the color, though.
I like that, a lot! I may buy some of that beer just for the bottles. I like my drinks a little stronger than that but I do make a pretty good beer bread and Brauts would use up the rest. Thanks for the idea.
Oh, wouldn't that be cool. With a little light at the tip of each "stem" it would be the cats meow at night time.
I had thought about adding lights, but I don't think it would be so easy. Nothing is spaced evenly for a string of lights, and I don't think I'll be buying individual lights... and they would have to be solar because it's too far away from a plug. BUT... if I ever see some lights like that... you can bet I'll nab them! I also straightened out that top one a bit. And I had one more bottle, so I just stuck it in there too to help fill it in some. Now... to just wait on spring so the plants in front of it will grow and hide the basket some.
I love the look of it, I will be looking at fake plants at thrift stores in a whole 'nuther way now. THESE are extremely expensive. And you would have to drill a hole in the bottom of the bottle for the metal rod since the cork end of these stoppers contain the solar cell. :-? Leave it asymetrical, afterall the original reason for the blue (or other color) bottle trees was to catch evil spirits that wandered about at night and they were made with whatever you had on hand as a base and whatever colored bottles were available. It's only been recently that they have become 'garden art' and come in more and more carefully thought out forms. Blue Bottle trees
Toni, I saw some of those bottle trees. Some are amazing! I like the simple one's the best though. And I'd forgotten about them catching evil spirits. I plugged the holes of mine with steel wool to keep the wasps from building nests in them. Hmmm.... what would I rather have... wasps? or evil spirits??? :-D
