The Blooming Things Are Good All Year, If You Like That Sort of Thing
It's the ultimate in low-maintenance landscaping: a tree that blooms all year long, needs no water or pruning and never dies.
Sales of man-made "bottle trees" are flourishing among homeowners wanting something more interesting in the garden than a birdbath or gnome. Styles vary, but most trees are crafted from steel with branches capped by colorful empty bottles. (click below to read more)
Owners of bottle trees are spreading the word. Some are giving them as Christmas gifts, while others order them for housewarming gifts. Shown here is a tree from bottletreecreations.com.
The trees have long been a fixture of rural Southern yards and in Caribbean island communities, where property owners commonly decorate real—but dead—trees with bottles.
The manufactured versions, which can be short or tall, are popping up everywhere from New York to Alaska. Many are hand-crafted by people who are into welding and are sold on websites such as thebottletreeman.com and bottletreecreations.com. Gardener's Supply Co. says bottle trees made in India are one of its top sellers in garden decor, a category that has been growing 15% annually, the company says.
"Bottle trees are the modern pink flamingo," says Felder Rushing, a garden author in Jackson, Miss., who is writing a book about the trees. "People are bored of the plantings we have. And you can only have so many naked goddess statues out there."
Bottle trees have their shortcomings. They can blow over if they aren't anchored well. And bottles must be positioned carefully on branches so they don't collect rain. And the trees aren't necessarily pest-resistant: "You'll get caterpillars going inside the bottles to make cocoons," says Jerry Swanson of Princeton, Wis., whose bottle trees are now standing in 34 states.
Some landscape architects wish the bottle tree trend would stay where its roots are.
"They have their place in Southern culture, but usually they risk looking totally tacky and like someone's leftover party binge," says Susan Cohan, a residential landscape designer in Chatham, N.J. "It's a country gardeners' thing. Not something I'd ever want or recommend for my clients."
Others liken the manufactured versions to fake Christmas trees. "There's something soulless about buying them over the Internet," says Margie Grace, principal of Grace Design Associates Inc. in Santa Barbara, Calif., who adds, "there is room for folk art, but this is faux art." For non-Southerners to erect a bottle tree can seem inauthentic, she says.
Buyers aren't deterred. Last week Sheila Cerjanec bought a design with wavy branches called the "Storm Tree" for $135 from bottletreebob.com and plans to erect it prominently outside her Madison, Conn., home. Ms. Cerjanec, 61, became interested after reading the book "On Folly Beach," where bottle trees play a prominent role in the South Carolina narrative.
"It's going to be a focal point in the yard," Ms. Cerjanec says.
Bottle-tree tradition is believed to have originated in Northern Africa where they hung glass orbs outside of dwellings to help deter or trap spirits, according to Mr. Rushing. The practice came to the Southern U.S. in part via the slave trade and other immigrants and became an inexpensive, colorful form of décor in poorer Southern communities, he says.
The trees have really branched out. At the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, there's a live 150-year-old Brazilian Pepper tree adorned with Italian wine bottles. The North Carolina Botanical Garden features a bottle tree dressed with small apothecary bottles.
At the Taste of Alaska Lodge in Fairbanks, the owners erected multiple eight-foot bottle trees around the property, decorating them with antique bottles. Some recent German guests left empty wine and beer bottles at the base of a tree as an apparent homage. "We just threw them out," owner Kory Eberhardt says, referring to the bottles.
In residential settings, the trees have outgrown their superstitious roots. Last year, Bill Lipsey, who manufactures cotton gin machinery in Sunflower, Miss., sold $200,000 worth of hand-made trees and empty colored bottles on his website, bottletree.com, he says.
"I don't think anyone believes in the [evil spirit] thing," he says. "It just gives it a little historical flare and makes it a conversation piece when sitting out with friends cooking and drinking a glass of wine."
Rick and Brenda Watts of Watson, Ark., like to give bottle trees as Christmas presents. Mr. Watts, 57, and his wife bought four trees and kept one for themselves. It took them a month around the holidays to "collect the leaves," Mr. Watts says, which were 20 bottles, including some from their wine-club membership as well as a Glenlivet 18-year-old Scotch and Sapporo beer bottles.
"I knew nothing about the history," says Mr. Watts, who wired his tree with lights programmed to go on at dusk. "The aesthetics got me."
Still, he was tickled when the bottle tree's manufacturer, Dudley Pleasants, entertained him with bottle-tree lore and performed his "Delta Blues" blessing on the tree when he picked it up.
Mr. Pleasants, who makes his trees in Greenwood, Miss., says he's selling about three trees a week. "I figured it was a fad," Mr. Pleasants says of the trees, which he started selling in 1990. "Now it's a tradition, with people buying them for their children as a house-warming gift."
Nicki Henderson of Biloxi, Miss., recently erected a bottle tree in an azalea bed for her four-year-old grandson, Glandon, to decorate. She also purchased a case of bottles for the occasion.
"My husband and I don't imbibe," she explains, "and I didn't want to stick mayo jars on it."
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