If this is in your yard, you probably have the following in your house:
-multiple Snuggies
-one Pabst can with four cigarette butts
-notices from Child Protective Services on the fridge
-two empty Copenhagen tins
-six half-empty bottles of mustard in the fridge
-a pet snake
-a lion print throw rug
-a Dale Earnhardt poster
-a slow relative in the attic
-a Git R Done hat you got when you bought the Larry the Cable Guy complete movie DVD set
-motorcycle engine parts on the kitchen table
-a surprisingly large number of empty Sudafed boxes
-a funnel that is used exclusively as a colander
-a chair you took from in front of your neighbor’s house
-a lack of intelligent conversation
Here’s your sign!
…or you’re a 36 year old hipster douchebag who is stuck in a permanent irony loop, lives in a rambling rental house four and a half miles from the small upstate New York college where you got a sociology degree, and says they restore furniture for a living while running down the capital in your trust fund.
I have one just outside the door and it seems to be working. No evil spirits here . . . just us rednecks. Oh, and we have glass mavi boncuks and tile bismillahs scattered around as backups too.
BTW, I found I didn’t really care for the sweetish wines which come in blue bottles. But then I discovered that Skyy vodka came in blue bottles . . . .
Bejeweled Bajingo Beauty
January 8, 2012 at 10:01 am
Looks like they have a penchant for Riesling. Leelanau Cellars Riesling to be exact. Their blue bottles look just like that and its cheap – oops, inexpensive… I should know, I have a penchant for Riesling.
And to think I was going to throw my last couple of weeks’ worth of wine bottles in the recycling tonight. Holiday party + my usual couple of bottles a week + 2 weeks of holidays observed on Monday (recycling day) = a lot of $35 wine trees. Yay!
Don’t know why that ended up a reply to Bejeweled Bajingo Beauty, because it was totally not relevant. Although, I am also a fan of inexpensive wine. I like to call it “recession friendly”.
There are paintings of bottle trees. Paintings. The only difference between the one selling for $400.00 and the one selling for $12,500.00 is that the latter has a person in it.
Forget the bottle, I’m just going to go consume a barrel and then fill it up with my tears and crawl into the bottom to drown.
Unfortunately, from the straggly appearance of the tree, it is obvious that these people know nothing about bottle plant farming. First, the soil in the back ground looks like highly organic soil, when bottle trees do best in a solonetzic soil.
Secondly, the wine bottle varieties do best in Zone 7&8, and from the background they are in a zone 5 at best. The colder climates are more suited for beer bottle vines and vodka bushes.
Bottle trees are actually a really old tradition in the part of the South I live in. Most of them have a lot of work put in, people will use bottles from important events, chosen by people they love, that kind of thing. One of the classic eateries near my alma mater is called the Bottletree Bakery.
However, this is a really shitty one. It’s supposed to be a bottle TREE, not a bottle RACK. I found far better examples HERE and HERE.
Wow, that 2nd one is really pretty. I’ve lived in the south for a long while and have never seen any that nice. For those interested here is a bottle tree page where you can buy your own trees and bottles. Warning – decent trees don’t come cheap – explains the one above though. http://www.bottletree.com/?gclid=CPS33e2XxK0CFUqb7QodJxu8AQ
I live in a nice, middle-class subdivision, and the VERY first house as you come in the entry has one of these. I think they think it looks sophisticated and European. GROAN.
It’s a hipster thing like drinking PBR, using 8-track tapes ON PURPOSE, pasting old pages of Ladies Home Journal on the wall for a retro-nostalgia wall paper and a really crappy bottle tree.
My Google Maps has got it all wrong because this tree is telling me that it’s LEFT to Margaritaville and RIGHT to Piña Coladaburg. Or… is it the opposite? Perhaps it’s up? Backward? 82 degrees SW? Hmph. This indication tree is not doing a very good job of indicating.
There’s a guy at our farmer’s market who does really cool blacksmithing for renaissance faires, and his booth sells some of his stuff as well as the soap his wife makes. He ALSO sells these things, and I have seen with my own eyes that people buy these instead of his other work. Now, his stand is a little more…sturdy…than this piece, but same basic pattern. Sometimes the problem lies in the buyer, not the seller.
Isn’t the point of a bottle tree that it’s easy to make for yourself and it uses bottles you already have lying around? Doesn’t buying one kind of defeat the purpose?
Bottle trees are a tradition where I’m from (which is under the Mason-Dixon line, go figure). My great-grandma used to make them, and there’s a historically-restored line of old slave quarters near my hometown with a yard full of them. Both the owner of the quarters (and myself) are African-American.
Hey, remember the guy who made the enema brooch? His house and yard are a fantastic fuckscape of amazing fuckery, some of which is done with bottles. Check this out:
Also, I bought awesome copepod pins for myself and my Mom for Christmas from him. He rawks!
January 8, 2012 at 9:49 am
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January 8, 2012 at 11:54 am
Tacky.
January 8, 2012 at 12:36 pm
January 8, 2012 at 9:55 am
I’m not an alcoholic,
alcoholics need a drink…
I already have one.
January 8, 2012 at 9:58 am
seriously though, $35 for a green painted hedge clipping? I must have chipped $350,000 last summer. DAMNIT!
Are the bottles included at least?
January 8, 2012 at 9:56 am
If this is in your yard, you probably have the following in your house:
-multiple Snuggies
-one Pabst can with four cigarette butts
-notices from Child Protective Services on the fridge
-two empty Copenhagen tins
-six half-empty bottles of mustard in the fridge
-a pet snake
-a lion print throw rug
-a Dale Earnhardt poster
-a slow relative in the attic
-a Git R Done hat you got when you bought the Larry the Cable Guy complete movie DVD set
-motorcycle engine parts on the kitchen table
-a surprisingly large number of empty Sudafed boxes
-a funnel that is used exclusively as a colander
-a chair you took from in front of your neighbor’s house
-a lack of intelligent conversation
Here’s your sign!
January 8, 2012 at 10:07 am
…or you’re a 36 year old hipster douchebag who is stuck in a permanent irony loop, lives in a rambling rental house four and a half miles from the small upstate New York college where you got a sociology degree, and says they restore furniture for a living while running down the capital in your trust fund.
January 8, 2012 at 11:19 am
a funnel used as a colander? WTF?
LOL
January 8, 2012 at 11:31 am
Have you been stalking me? How did you know?
January 8, 2012 at 1:59 pm
What’s wrong with a pet snake?
January 8, 2012 at 6:58 pm
By itself, nothing. Snakies are cute. It’s only when multiple factors from that list compound that things become troubling.
I’d be much more concerned about someone who owns a hog but not a farm.
January 8, 2012 at 9:57 am
Howard Finster did it first! And better!
January 8, 2012 at 10:01 am
IIRC bottle trees were to confuse, trap and contain evil spirits until the light of the sun destroyed them, similar to dream catchers.
Myself I think they look better as live trees adorned with the fruits of one’s drinking, preferably in cobalt blue.
January 8, 2012 at 11:54 am
Real bottle trees are gorgeous.
January 8, 2012 at 4:22 pm
I have one just outside the door and it seems to be working. No evil spirits here . . . just us rednecks. Oh, and we have glass mavi boncuks and tile bismillahs scattered around as backups too.
BTW, I found I didn’t really care for the sweetish wines which come in blue bottles. But then I discovered that Skyy vodka came in blue bottles . . . .
January 9, 2012 at 4:05 pm
You also have the related shoe tree which sport up in odd locations around the US
January 8, 2012 at 9:58 am
Impaled bodies on spikes was someone else’s idea of a fun way to make a statement in their yard, but you don’t see me doing it.
If someone paid me for it though, I might have a few bodies in mind.
January 8, 2012 at 10:01 am
Looks like they have a penchant for Riesling. Leelanau Cellars Riesling to be exact. Their blue bottles look just like that and its cheap – oops, inexpensive… I should know, I have a penchant for Riesling.
January 8, 2012 at 11:50 am
And to think I was going to throw my last couple of weeks’ worth of wine bottles in the recycling tonight. Holiday party + my usual couple of bottles a week + 2 weeks of holidays observed on Monday (recycling day) = a lot of $35 wine trees. Yay!
January 8, 2012 at 11:52 am
Don’t know why that ended up a reply to Bejeweled Bajingo Beauty, because it was totally not relevant. Although, I am also a fan of inexpensive wine. I like to call it “recession friendly”.
January 8, 2012 at 10:04 am
Holy cow…
different sellers I think, but the price on these seems to have gone up!
http://www.etsy.com/search?search_submit=&langid_override=-1&q=bottle+tree&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US
January 8, 2012 at 12:24 pm
And in Draper Utah, no less. The horror… I’m thinking her clients are out of state.
January 8, 2012 at 12:54 pm
There are paintings of bottle trees. Paintings. The only difference between the one selling for $400.00 and the one selling for $12,500.00 is that the latter has a person in it.
Forget the bottle, I’m just going to go consume a barrel and then fill it up with my tears and crawl into the bottom to drown.
January 8, 2012 at 10:09 am
It’s a garden accent to go with your toilet planter next to your trailer.
See how pretty that would spruce up your double wide?
January 8, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Scary…the flags made me think of Arlington Cemetery. Is this where American toilets go when they die after years of loyal service?
January 8, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Old toilets never die, they just float away…
January 10, 2012 at 1:01 am
they just refuse to take any more crap.
January 8, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Not Arlington, specifically, but my first thought was “grave markers”.
January 8, 2012 at 12:33 pm
I think these would look perfect lining the drive to the White House.
January 8, 2012 at 10:13 am
“That’ll show that nosy neighbor who always checks my recycling bin to see how many bottles there are! So there!”
January 8, 2012 at 10:14 am
Alternately:
“And those f*ckers thought the car on blocks was bad. HAH!”
January 8, 2012 at 10:18 am
“I was too lazy to walk these all the way out to the trashcan and had smoked a lot of weed at the time”
January 8, 2012 at 11:47 am
“Do you want to see the bong that I made?”
January 8, 2012 at 10:32 am
That “tree” looks like it drank the contents of its own bottles!
January 8, 2012 at 10:33 am
Unfortunately, from the straggly appearance of the tree, it is obvious that these people know nothing about bottle plant farming. First, the soil in the back ground looks like highly organic soil, when bottle trees do best in a solonetzic soil.
Secondly, the wine bottle varieties do best in Zone 7&8, and from the background they are in a zone 5 at best. The colder climates are more suited for beer bottle vines and vodka bushes.
January 8, 2012 at 12:26 pm
But it’s the dead of winter up here in the Arctic Circle and the rum trees are flourishing like weeds. Guess my green thumb isn’t frostbite after all…
January 8, 2012 at 10:35 am
Bottle trees are actually a really old tradition in the part of the South I live in. Most of them have a lot of work put in, people will use bottles from important events, chosen by people they love, that kind of thing. One of the classic eateries near my alma mater is called the Bottletree Bakery.
However, this is a really shitty one. It’s supposed to be a bottle TREE, not a bottle RACK. I found far better examples HERE and HERE.
January 8, 2012 at 11:56 am
Those are gorgeous.
January 8, 2012 at 11:58 am
Yeah, that’s how you do it.
January 9, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Wow, that 2nd one is really pretty. I’ve lived in the south for a long while and have never seen any that nice. For those interested here is a bottle tree page where you can buy your own trees and bottles. Warning – decent trees don’t come cheap – explains the one above though.
http://www.bottletree.com/?gclid=CPS33e2XxK0CFUqb7QodJxu8AQ
January 8, 2012 at 10:38 am
Is that the one Lirp was impaled on? (Obscure literary reference…ten points to those who get it…)
January 8, 2012 at 11:19 am
Oh, oh, I know! The Unstrung Harp! Gorey was wonderful.
It never occurred to me that it might have been this sort of bottle tree. Hum.
January 8, 2012 at 11:30 am
I live in a nice, middle-class subdivision, and the VERY first house as you come in the entry has one of these. I think they think it looks sophisticated and European. GROAN.
January 8, 2012 at 11:48 am
And that statement would be: I’m too classy for boxed wine, but I have a real problem figuring out how to dispose of my empties.
January 8, 2012 at 11:51 am
…than a frontal tree lobotomy?
First thing that came to mind when I saw the heading, and I snickered.
January 8, 2012 at 11:53 am
Traditional recycling is just too mainstream….
January 8, 2012 at 7:10 pm
It’s a hipster thing like drinking PBR, using 8-track tapes ON PURPOSE, pasting old pages of Ladies Home Journal on the wall for a retro-nostalgia wall paper and a really crappy bottle tree.
January 8, 2012 at 12:00 pm
I believe the statement made here is “My home owners association can go intercourse themselves”.
January 8, 2012 at 12:06 pm
*snicker*
January 8, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Hey, there’s a website! Bottletree.com slightly nicer products, still totally useless!
January 8, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Not totally useless!
I, for one, can see the benefit of keeping evil spirits out of my house.
I prefer only top-shelf spirits in my cocktails.
January 8, 2012 at 12:18 pm
“I drank all these and forgot what a tree looked like.”
January 8, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Apparently these drunks like Riesling.
January 8, 2012 at 12:27 pm
I think one made out of wine boxes would be more fitting for us.
January 8, 2012 at 12:30 pm
One possible explanation:
January 8, 2012 at 12:39 pm
I imagine this would look great adjacent to someone’s car they have on blocks in the front yard. It would class up the place real nice like.
January 8, 2012 at 12:49 pm
My Google Maps has got it all wrong because this tree is telling me that it’s LEFT to Margaritaville and RIGHT to Piña Coladaburg. Or… is it the opposite? Perhaps it’s up? Backward? 82 degrees SW? Hmph. This indication tree is not doing a very good job of indicating.
January 8, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Damn changes in latitude.
January 8, 2012 at 12:51 pm
There’s a guy at our farmer’s market who does really cool blacksmithing for renaissance faires, and his booth sells some of his stuff as well as the soap his wife makes. He ALSO sells these things, and I have seen with my own eyes that people buy these instead of his other work. Now, his stand is a little more…sturdy…than this piece, but same basic pattern. Sometimes the problem lies in the buyer, not the seller.
January 8, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Isn’t the point of a bottle tree that it’s easy to make for yourself and it uses bottles you already have lying around? Doesn’t buying one kind of defeat the purpose?
And isn’t that one even more hideous than usual?
January 8, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Bottle trees are a tradition where I’m from (which is under the Mason-Dixon line, go figure). My great-grandma used to make them, and there’s a historically-restored line of old slave quarters near my hometown with a yard full of them. Both the owner of the quarters (and myself) are African-American.
January 8, 2012 at 6:55 pm
And I’ll bet they look like the good ones Jezi Belle linked to (your great-grandma’s and the ones at the quarters).
January 8, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Now will be singing this the rest of damn the day:
January 8, 2012 at 1:39 pm
damnit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr-kn0JG5p4
January 8, 2012 at 1:39 pm
My neighbor has one of these in her backyard, and I’ve always wondered whet the hell it was for.
January 8, 2012 at 8:13 pm
BOTTLE TREE: WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN’!
January 8, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Hey, remember the guy who made the enema brooch? His house and yard are a fantastic fuckscape of amazing fuckery, some of which is done with bottles. Check this out:
Also, I bought awesome copepod pins for myself and my Mom for Christmas from him. He rawks!
January 8, 2012 at 3:02 pm
He does appear to have mad concrete skills!
January 8, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Hey….does Charlie Sheen know someone ripped off his Christmas tree?
January 8, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Alcoholic poseur. Real ones would have already recycled those for moar monies.
January 8, 2012 at 3:29 pm
It makes a statement, alright…
“There is no Homeowner’s Association in the vicinity.”
Also, is that someone’s YARD in that picture? The seller must be Br’er Rabbit!
January 8, 2012 at 5:20 pm
“The Hobo Wedding is HERE.”
January 9, 2012 at 8:36 am
If you’re going to have a tacky ass bottle tree at least do it right like the guy who owns the bottle tree ranch. It’s on my list of places to visit one day. http://atlasobscura.com/place/elmer-long-s-bottle-tree-ranch