Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Bottles in the landscape

When I drove by this hellstrip I had to stop and snap a photo.

It's definitely an inexpensive and colorful "hardscape" treatment. Well, if you don't count the price of the wine, or water, or booze, or whatever it is that was purchased in those bottles.

Seeing it got me thinking back to Bella Madrona and the first time I saw bottles used as hardscape...

Then my mind really got traveling and I started remembering other bottle uses I've seen. Like these next to Garden Fever, topping a retaining wall...

...and acting as mini-terrariums.

There were all sorts of bottles in Karen Schwartz's garden...

And I can't forget the bottles I saw last December at Raul Zumba's garden in the Bay Area.

All these bottle thoughts had me wondering if I shouldn't try and come up with something creative to do with the mountain of wine bottles we go through. I have donated a few to Alison, who is up to creative things in her garden, like this...


But thus far all I do is take our bottles to the curb each week.

Weather Diary, Dec 1: Hi 47, Low 30/ Precip 0

All material © 2009-2019 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

16 comments:

  1. That's an interesting survey on the use of bottles. I used them to edge beds as in your 8th photo in my former garden but they were all clear - no wine, just boring diet Snapple bottles! I like how they were used on a slope in the Zumba garden - I may try that.

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    1. Too bad we don't live closer and I could supply you with wine bottles!

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  2. This was fun, and thanks for linking to my post! I really appreciated getting a look at other uses of bottles. I wish my soil wasn't so rocky and hard to dig, because my ideal would be to have a large expanse of upended bottles like the hellstrip you saw, or the area at Bella Madrona. I've got enough bottles right now to last me a good while (I'm storing them in my shed, and can barely get inside). I bet when you finally come up with something to do with bottles it will have your signature, unique, mod twist to it.

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    1. You're very kind Alison...we shall see! Unfortunately my soil is also rather rocky, and also clay. Not fun to dig.

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  3. Love the creativity. Brings whole new meaning to the word 'reuse'.

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  4. Can't wait to see what creative use for wine bottles you come up with.

    My "creativity" is limited to sticking blue bottles on our bottle tree :-)

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    1. If I lived nearby I'll sneak in some night and replace them all with green wine bottles...wouldn't that freak you out? Just for a bit at least?

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  5. I love the dark colors of the bottles in the examples. I will have to take a closer look at what we have been drinking. Finally getting over a nasty virus, so I have been checkin your blog but not commenting. Love the holiday decor ideas in your previous post. Clever and unusual.

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  6. How intriguing! I've seen bottle houses and I've seen them in rows as an edging but never like these. Do you suppose they remove top portions with a tile cutter so there's not so much deep digging involved? Wine bottles are pretty tall; I think I'd be too lazy to do the amount of digging it would require to bury that many. I like them stacked like in Alison's garden. Have not seen that done before either.

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    1. I wonder if they do? It would certainly cut down on the work involved getting them in place.

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  7. Wonderful ideas to help "recycle" old bottles. Especially liked the Bella Madrona image. Check out the bottle work of Anado Maclauchlin,an artist in San Miguel, Mex. He has been adorning all the buildings within his compound for years with tile and bottles! https://www.bestculturaldestinations.com/blog/photo-essay-anado-mclauchlin-san-miguel-de-allende

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    1. Oh that was fun! Thank you for the link.

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  8. It me a while to read this post as I had to dive into every garden you provided a link for. At the end, when in comes to bottles' design, I feel less is more. Raul Zumba's retaining wall groupings worked well, and even more appealing to me is the way Alison used just a touch of "bottles" in her design.

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  9. I can't wait to see what you'll come up with.

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