The New Blue Bottle Bush

...is actually a tree. The one we made last year had issues--it kept bending and the bottles were falling off. So we regrouped this Spring, Larry climbed the tree, and voila!

The blue balls are from '60's candle holders that were in a $2 box of junk at the auction. I love them hanging on the tree.

I think it's perfect, and there is plenty of room for more bottles. This time we corked them and hung them with wire. I need a few small corks for some small bottles that are not on the tree yet.

The brownie seems to like his new neighbor pretty well.

Look closely at this photo. You may need to click on it to make it large. Do you see a face in there? Kinda creepy--I think we've caught our first evil spirit!

Surprise Package

A package waited for me on the porch when I arrive home from work. Had I ordered anything? I didn't recall anything. I haven't even been on eBay for some time because garden work and storytelling have kept me so busy. It wasn't my birthday either.

So what was in the package?

Another blue bottle!

This one, a beautiful triangular shape with the word "Pear" stamped on the bottom, came from my friend Jason in Morgantown.

Thanks, Jason!

The Bottle Bush Complete

Last week another surprise package arrived in the mail. I opened it, and lo! Another beautiful blue bottle! This one is from Ellouise in Maryland. It joined the collection on the porch as I searched for the perfect place to put the bottle bush. If you missed it, the original post about the bush and the folklore surrounding bottle bushes is in my March 2nd post.

First, of course, I had to find a bush to use. I decided not to use on of my living shrubs for several reasons: the limbs are very, well, limber. They bent with the weight of the bottles. Another reason was that the limbs weren't strong enough, at least in my opinion.

So I searched for a branch from one of the trees we'd cut for firewood last year. We don't cut many live trees anymore, because the ice storm 5 years ago and the drought last summer have supplied plenty of dead wood to be cut. I finally found an oak branch to my liking when Larry and I went mushroom hunting (more about that later).

The bottles go on the bush:

Larry puts on the crowning touch...

and voila! Our blue bottle bush is complete. We used an old umbrella base to anchor the branch, and placed the whole thing in the corner of the patio (don't look at the dead leaves on the ground; I haven't got it cleaned up yet.) Can you see Idaho (2nd from the top), Maryland (2nd from bottom), Kansas (right side, third one toward the center), and Nova Scotia 9it's hardest to see, but it is just above and to the right of Maryland--the bottom is facing the camera)? There's also one from Fairmont (small bottle on right), a few from Cottageville (top and center)...and a few left over!

I wondered how the bush would do in a windstorm. Would the bottles blow off? Would the branches break? Should we have put it somewhere were the bottles could get a soft landing if it tipped over? Last night a big thunderstorm blew in and I woke up several times, wondering how the bottles were doing.

When I got up, everything was intact. Whew.

Thank you, all my friends for sending and sharing bottles with me. This has been a fun project, and now we're safe from evil spirits ;-)

Another Blue Bottle Arrives

Mysteriously in the mail, a bright blue bottle.

Where did it come from? Oz? No, but close.

Thank you Priscilla! It's lovely. Here's the collection so far, minus Claire's bottle from Nova Scotia. That one is still on my table inside.

I added a milk of magnesia bottle and the two-handled on near the center recently. I stopped at an antique mall as Donna and I were headed to the Storytelling Institute last Thursday. The small blue bottle in front is from Jaime, and the Vick's bottle to the left is one I've had as a storytelling prop for a while.

So the collection is just about right for a bush. That will be a project this weekend, when granddaughters Hannah and Haley are visiting.

Blue Bottles in the Mail

What a surprise to open the mailbox today and find yet another package with a beautiful blue bottle.


It's exquisite, small and finely patterned.


It was sent by my friend Claire in Nova Scotia, who thought I might like it.


I do. I like it very much. Thank you, Claire. I owe you.








The Candadian bottle and the Idaho bottle sit side by side on the porch now, waiting for the bush to be created.


Only 3 more bottles, and it's a go.


I just love my friends.

Building a Blue Bottle Bush

I'm slowly collecting blue bottles for my bottle bush.

What is a bottle bush, and why would I want one?

There is a photo of one on Flickr that is a very good example. And here is another on Gardenweb.

Now, why on earth would anyone hang blue bottles on trees and bushes?

According to folklore, especially in the American south and the Caribbean regions, bottles were placed in trees to ward off evil spirits. According to some people, the spirits would get trapped in the bottles and not be able to get into your house. Blue bottles were thought to be the strongest deterrent, because blue, apparently, is considered a strong color against evil. But the trees were often decorated with green, brown and clear bottles too. According to the excellent article at Hill Country of Monroe Mississippi blog, Eudora Welty described bottle bushes in her story Livvie.

The Tuscaloosa News online has an article and video about Cindy Norwood, who has a large blue bottle bush tree in her yard. According to the article, the practice is of African origin, which seems quite likely given the prevalence of the bushes in the south.

That same article cites noted Alabama storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham's book of folklore as a source of information about the blue bottles tradition. I first heard about the blue bottle bushes from Kathryn at a storytelling event and the idea has intrigued me ever since. After seeing my storytelling friend Donna Wilson's bottle bush, I decided it was time to start collecting bottles for my own bush.

The tradition has made its way north, at least as far north as Maine, where writer Tom Seymour had this information about bottle bushes (along with photos of his own bottle trees: "Bottle trees (Silica transparencii, according to famous horticulturist Felder Rushing) have a long and somewhat ambiguous history. The bottle tree is said to have originated in the slave-holding south, where Africans placed bottles on tree limbs in order to trap evil spirits. One legend tells that the people would place corks on each bottle in the morning in order to trap spirits trapped during the previous night. Then they would throw the bottles away.Another tradition suggests that the morning sun would instantly dissipate any trapped spirits. And yet another story says that wind, blowing across the lip of the bottles, would scare away any spirits. A variant on this proclaims the whistling to be the sound of the unhappy, trapped spirits."

In the Far East, a Korean folktale includes magical blue and red bottles that are hidden inside gourds. Did the African bottle lore inspire that story too, or did the idea of magical bottles actually originate in Korea and surrounding areas?

Sliding slightly from the bottles themselves to the word bluebottle, the Orkneyjar site offers insight into the bluebottle fly, and left me wondering if the fly's name originated from its being trapped in the blue bottles on bushes? Questions, questions--that is what I find so intriguing about folklore: the questions as to why people believe and do the things they do.

So, if you happen to have any blue bottles, and you're not worried about evil spirits getting in your house, send the bottle my way. I'm not too concerned about evil spirits, but I sure like the look of a bottle bush!

Here are some other sites with additional information about bottles and bottle bushes/trees:

A review of a collection of Jamaican tales called Skin Folk notes than in one tale, blue bottles hold the spirits of the dead, and if the bottle is broken the spirit will return.

Guyanese folklore includes a small spirit called bacoo who is trapped in corked bottles.

Find out about Tressa Prisbrey's "bottle village" here.

A recipe for seeing the fae folk includes using a "special bottle."

"Blue bottles hanging around a house meant a death from fever." --from The Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. II (a 1903 title now available again for $50 online).

Biddy Early's magic bottle--"by looking into the bottle with one eye and keeping the other eye open, she would be able to see what ailed people and view the future." Was she truly powerful or was it all legend? In her book The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog, author Patricia Monaghan notes that Biddy's bottle was blue.

Ready to make your own blue bottle bush? Just in case...