Bottle Bush

Bottle bush

This is my quick and easy substitute for a bottle tree. I usually call it a bottle bush. Sometimes I call it a bottle garden. Some might call it a clump of tomato stakes with bottles on them. (A bottle bunch?)

I've wanted a bottle tree for a long time, not for superstitious reasons, but because I love to see sunshine through colored glass. I enjoy stained glass windows for the same reasons.

This spring I collected colored bottles at the thrift shops, and soon I had enough to "plant" them. When I first put them out, I had two red bottles and one each of violet, pink, and orange. I loved having lots of colors!  But after a couple of months, they lost big patches of their color coating, so I removed them. And all the replacements I've found have been blue or green.

I have a hard time identifying bottles that have their color painted on. A Goodwill clerk told me to hold the bottle up to the light and look inside for scratches in the coating. That works well -- except for painted bottles that are in perfect condition.

The real test is a few months in the sun, wind, and rain.