How to Create a Bottle Tree For Your Yard

A bottle tree, once seen across the rural South, gives plants something to climb and gives your flowerbeds or garden bright color. The bottle tree tradition, traced to West Africa, arises from a belief that bottles, especially blue ones, capture evil spirits at night. In daytime, the sun reflects off the bottles in many colors.

Dead tree
Longneck pop bottles
Post
Drill and bit set
Dowels
Saw
Climbing vine

Instructions

- 1
  Place a dead tree about 4 or 5 feet tall in your yard or flowerbed. Make sure it has strong top limbs, as you want each limb to hold a longneck pop bottle; the bottles will take over the tree. Strip any leaves off the limbs.
- 2
  Place a post in the ground for an alternative version of the bottle tree. Drill holes in it on all sides to accept 10-inch-long round dowels pressed into place at an upward angle to hold the bottles.
- 3
  Collect longneck bottles, such as blue ones for a traditional look. Or mix it up and put a blend of colors, or all red, according to personal preference. Note that using just one color makes a greater impact. Place these on the limbs or dowels.
- 4
  Plant a climbing vine that flowers all summer to grow up the bottle tree.

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