How We Make Bottle Trees

After several requests for bottle trees I began doing a little research. What is a bottle tree? I found the following:

In Africa the kongo tree altar is a tradition of honoring deceased relatives with graveside memorials. The family will surround the grave with plates attached to sticks or trees. The plates are thought to resemble mushrooms, calling on a Kongo pun: "matondo"/"tondo" (the kongo word for mushroom is similar to their word - to love). During the slave trade this tradition migrated to the United States where the slaves would place bottles in trees in hope that the evil spirits would go into the bottles and be trapped. Once the evil spirits were trapped the saves would cork the bottles and throw them into the river to wash them away.
- thebottletreeman.com

I don't know if that is true, but all the lore I could find involved trapping evil spirits in the shiny glass bottles.

So, after some thought......I decided to design a functional bottle tree. Most of the examples I found were very large and would require a large area to place them. Alot of my customers do not have alot of space due to the large amount of flowers, don't you know?!

The GardenologyKC bottle tree is made of wood with a stand so that it can be moved easily. An anchoring rebar piece helps hold the stand in place. Gardeners like to move things around as they like, so this bottle tree with easily relocated to any area of the garden.

Loving functional art, our bottle tree has lots of spikes for bottles, hummingbird feeders and glass totems.

I also added two large spikes that hold the birdbath bowl totems for a nice cool drink for my feathered friends.
Now let's talk about the top of my bottle tree. Yup, that's a wine bottle that's been transformed into a Lady With A Hat On. She has not only a wonderful hat made of an upturned bowl, a tiny green tea pot, a child's saucer and cup with a tiny scottie dog inside. She also has earrings and wiry hair.
I can't stay away from the whimsical side of garden art. I think she would look lovely overlooking a vegetable garden, tucked into a perennial border or at the edge of the lawn.

I talked Dan and my son, Ryan into making two of them. One for me and one for the shoppe that you can buy for $70. The bottle tree has 17 spikes and stands 6' tall.