What in the World is a Bottle Tree?

I have bottle trees in my garden among other things. The great thing about bottle trees is that they don't die, don't have to be watered or fertilized and aren't hurt by the cold weather.

In fact, Bay News 9 called last year to see if they could do a story on my garden.  It seems that the garden that they had planned to feature had been frozen down to the ground. They heard about my garden and the bottle trees and turned their feature into a story about how to have color year round.

The origin of the bottle tree can be traced back to Africa. Evidently, it was thought that shiny objects placed around the home would attract evil spirits away from the home. With the tragedy of the slave trade, the tradition found its way to North America and continued to evolve in to the hanging of bottles in trees to “trap” the evil spirits. 

I don’t believe that bottles can in any way trap evil spirits. In fact, I turn my bottles in to "Wish Bottles." I have family and friends write down a wish on a piece of paper, roll it up and place it in to a bottle on the tree. I love looking at the bottles with their rolled-up pieces of paper, knowing that the paper represents a wish or a dream.

When visitors, grandkids, etc. return to my garden, they know exactly which bottle holds their own special wish.

You can do this, too, and you don't even need a bottle tree. You can take a piece of rebar, bamboo, etc.and make sure it is the right size that a bottle can fit over the piece upside down. Place your wish in the bottle and turn the bottle upside down and place over the rebar.

Please send pictures if you do this for me to share on future blogs.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Sharon Summerall