How to Make a DIY Bottle Tree

Welcome to my parents backyard! Yep, that’s a 10 foot tall bottle tree made out of different diameters of steel round rod complete with colored bottles my mom collected from friends and a few she purchased from the internet.

• flower pot Nutcrackers
• glass block shower wall
• etched glass cabinets
• USA license plate map

The steel bottle brush tree is no exception except that my mom did not actually make it herself. My mom and I were first intrigued with bottle trees after a trip to a plant nursery in Independence, Texas called the Antique Rose Emporium. Here are a few pictures I found on Digging of bottle trees at the Antique Rose Emporium.

Upon closer inspection of the Antique Rose Emporium bottle trees, you will notice that the these bottle trees are real cedar trees, and the bottles are simply placed on dead branches. The roses are pretty and smell yummy, but as a kid I remember the Antique Rose Emporium for the bottle trees, funky art, and this picture of a potted archway.

Where did the bottle tree originate?

It turns out the idea of a bottle tree has been around since glass bottles were invented around 1600 B.C. in Egypt and Mesopotamia. As the story goes, people believed the whir of the wind through a bottle was the sound of spirits trapped inside. (Remember Aladdin?) Naturally, the next step is to put a cap on the bottle trapping the bad spirits inside. Then, the light of a sunny day would destroy the evil spirits. So, people kept bottles by entryways to protect their home from evil spirits. This is how the bottle tree was born.

I actually bought my mom a bottle brush tree for Mother’s Day a few years ago, thinking that would suffice her bottle tree fixation. Although the tree I got her did not look like this…

image

It was about 1/20th the size with only 5 twiggy limbs. The tree had a tragic soccer ball to the head (branches) and never recovered. My mom decided a real tree could not live in that spot and thought a steel tree would be perfect. There have a been a few broken bottles, but those are fairly easily replaced! My family thinks our backyard is a soccer field.

Here was my mom’s inspiration tree. This tree was created by a Mississippi artist named Stephanie Dwyer.

And here is the DIY bottle tree beauty in my mom’s backyard…

Note: That brick wall is used as a soccer goal. You can see why the tree needs to be super sturdy!

A close up of her carefully crafted branches:

My mom and her bottle tree…

How to make a bottle brush tree

The bottle tree was my mom’s vision and her persistence is what got the project complete, but a family friend did the actual welding of the steel. My mom purchased different diameters of steel round rod at a local steel supply store. According to my dad, you can not buy steel round rod at the big box hardware stores. Here are colored bottles my mom has bought before.

My mom’s tree is about 10 feet tall and holds 60 bottles. She estimates that it cost about $300 for materials. $150 for the metal and $150 for the colored bottles. The clear and green ones are just old wine bottles she collected from friends. If you are not in the market to DIY a bottle tree, here is a super simple, pretty bottle tree from Amazon that holds 10 bottles!