BOTTLE TREES

Felder and a bottle tree at Disney's Epcot Center

The first bottle tree I remember ever seeing - at least the first one anyone explained to me - was alongside a dusty farm road alongside the Sunflower River, which snakes through the heart of Mississippi Delta cotton fields where I was raised. I was fifteen years old.

Since then I have photographed hundreds of these unique landscape accessories, from every state in the South to gardens in the Pacific Northest, Southern California, New England, Midwest, and even in upper Michigan. Plus Europe, South America, and Africa.

Many web sites now mention bottle trees, and quite a few offer them for sale. But most continue to pass around the same tired old history and lore, without getting into the, uh, "spirit" of what they are all about. This page - and my link to bottle tree history - is a partial compilation of many years of observation and research.

For thousands of years, superstition has held that bottles can trap bad spirits at night, which are then destroyed in the next day's sunlight - legends of "bottle "imps" and geniis in lamps originated in Arabia over three thousand years ago, and have been handed down through sub-Saharan Africa, up to Europe, and finally to North America.

For more bottle tree history go to my History of Bottle Trees.

Meanwhile, here are just over a hundred examples of my hundreds of bottle tree photographs; all are original images except for three which were shared by friends.

ENJOY! Or better yet, GET INSPIRED!

Rural Mississippi Bottle Tree

Greg Grant's garden, near Timpson, Texas .

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Bottle trees in Shangri La Botanic Garden. Orange Texas (photographs courtesy of Greg Grant)

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Jenks Farmer, near Florence South Carolina...........Jenks Farmer ...Jenks Farmer

...Felder Rushing bottle tree..

Rick Griffin bottle tree, Jackson Mississippi.

.Jackson Mississippi ........ ..Neshoba County Fair, Mississippi ....Caledonia Mississippi

.......................Ava Maria Grotto, Cullman Alabama

Felder Rushing bottle tree..... ..... Columbia Mississippi

.Rural Mississippi......Kanapaha Gardens, Gainesville FL

Outside Sonoma CA.........New Mexico

.........................New England Flower Show, Boston MA

Mississippi Delta.... ....Rural Mississippi ..............Medicine Bottles, NC Botanic Garden Chapel Hill... ..

Quigley's Castle, Arkansas...........Rick Griffin..........Near Encinitas California...Huntsville Alabama

Laurel Mississippi.....Indianola Mississippi

Floral window, Callaway Gardens, GA.................San Antonia TX

Church window, Baton Rouge Louisiana....Mississippi Bottle House.

.Felder bottle tree .................another Felder tree .The Shed Barbeque near Gulfport Mississippi........The Shed

..Another"Shed Head" tree

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. Traverse City, northern Michigan

...........Felder bottle tree...Felder bottle tree ..

Felder Rushing yard..

.Vicksburg Mississippi

Wade Wharton, Huntsville Alabama..........more Wade Wharton

.....................Mississippi Delta

University of Tennessee demo garden, Jackson Tennessee ..

...Milton, Florida

....Oklahoma City

.........................rural Mississippi

Memphis Tennessee ........Portland Oregon

....Blacksburg Virginia

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.Savannah Georgia ....Ghana, West Africa

..Virginia.....Yazoo City, Mississippi

.Nacogdoches TX.....San Antonio Texas

.Felder bottles..... ....Portland Oregon

....Oklahoma

.Felder bottle tree......Recycled bottles, Pittsburgh PA

..Brenham Texas........

rural Mississippi.....................

....Bouy Tree, near Tampa Florida

Lucinda Hutson garden, Austin TX..... Mulched with wine bottle corks

Rural Mississippi, with collard greens.......Nacogdoches Texas..

.African entryway of bottles... rural Mississippi

Bowling ball bush, Alaska.... Bouy Tree on a Florida Key Island

Rooster Tree, San Marcos, Texas........Tuba Tree, Encinitas California

Bottle drying rack...............Julia Child's bottle rack, Napa CA

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....Fraunau GlasseTree outside glass museum in Bavarian Forest (photo by Chris Werle Poplarville MS)..

Mae Morris, Columbia MS.......Meredith Hebden, Charlotte NC

Gourd Tree, River Banks Botanic Garden, Columbia South Carolina........

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Felder's latest bottle tree, created by metal artist Stephanie Dwyer, currently of Jackson Mississippi (2 photos courtesy of Thomas Beck (www.beckphotagraphic.net):

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Stephanie working her craft

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HAD ENOUGH YET?

Well, for more bottle tree history go to my History of Bottle Trees.

And for a few hundred more images of very interesting bottle trees taken by others around the world, go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/663452@N22/