Umm... Bottle Trees
- Subject: Umm... Bottle Trees
- From: T* K* E*
- Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 08:13:33 -0500
<< I "planted" a blue bottle tree on my arbor so that the setting sun shines
through the glass. Gorgeous >>
>>You guys have to tell the rest of us where you are located. It is hard to
get a fix on a plant if the whole USA is the palette. I would like to know
where things are growing. Sometimes we in the North Pole can use containers
for these "exotics".
USDA 7B, eastern NC? "Real" Bottle trees are a southern phenomenon, I
think. Started with the old glass milk of magnesia bottles, and Noxzema,
when that came in glass. Now mine is mostly Arizona Ice Tea, with a handful
of Skyy Vodka bottles and a few wine bottles in blue. Pity that Bombay
Sapphire Gin isn't a real blue bottle; it's a polymer coating that falls off
after a week or three in the sun. It was easier to "feed" the tree a year
or two ago by fishing through the recycling bin at the dump; now all my
neighbors want blue bottle trees of their own and there are hardly ever any
blue bottles in the bin. I've been reduced to BUYING! blue glass at thrift
shops and such.
You can find instructions for "growing" one of your own in Passalong Plants,
by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing, on pp. 203-206. As long as you made
sure all your bottles drained down so they don't collect ANY water at all, I
can't see why it wouldn't be perfectly hardy anywhere in the gardening USA.
There is a brown bottle tree at the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. Jim
Massey (Holly Hill Daylilies) and Lyle Estill (Moncure Chessworks) created
three sculptural trees out of rebar and glass to show the different ways
leaves can be attached--opposite, alternate, and whorled. (If I remember
rightly, one each is blue, green and brown.) Otherwise, I think brown
bottle trees are a little tacky, but I have to admit, I LOVE the brown
bottle walls I've seen in garden books. See John Beardsley's Gardens of
Revelation: Environments by Visionary Artists for pictures.
(For the record, my winter-blooming "CD" tree was destroyed by a recent
windstorm, which proved to be stronger than the fishing line I'd used to
hang the CDs in the tree. It's close enough to leafing out time that I
decided not to "repair" the damage and will put the CDs away until next
Christmas (thank you, AOL). Maybe I'll do an Easter Egg tree this year...
in my neighborhood, they are completely perennial and bloom all summer
long.)
If you need containers, you might want to look into the instructions for
tire planters, again in Passalong Plants. I may make one for my hibiscus
this year, and paint it in Martha Stewart colors, natch.
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