A Bottle Tree Grows in Wayzata

Note: I haven't repeated posts from my regular gardening blog, The Garden Buzz, here at Your Voices, always trying to keep the subject matter fresh. However, the snow is so deep in my garden that only the trees and tips of shrubs are visible. A post showing the snow-daubed bottle tree in my garden received such a big response, I thought I'd share it in this column too. Heck, even the Strib's GreenGirls "go inside" with their blog come winter. So cut me some slack this week...

...Long ago and far away I was once a traveling saleswoman. While I grew up in 'southern' California, I spent my next six years treading the ground of my truly southern ancestors. During this time I drove my trusty little blue Renault over the highways and back roads of Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas selling frames for an optical company.

Well, at least that was what I was supposed to be doing, and I did put forth great effort. However it was still a man's world down there, and I lacked the expense account, golf skills and alcohol tolerance that seemed to bode for success in that arena.

But enough excuses. I will freely admit I was mightily distracted by the exotic, rural landscape of people and plants that populated the tiny towns and backwaters of the south. Kudzu-covered forests, floating lotus meadows, shotgun shacks, ditch lilies and Dorothy Perkins roses sprawled over discarded kitchen appliances were so more interesting than the beige and boring optometrist offices where I would wait patiently while thumbing faded Field and Stream magazines.

On the best days I would spot a bottle tree. These were not the contrived concoctions put together by gardeners and yard-decorators for some kitsch and color. These were the real thing; blue bottles, most likely Milk of Magnesia, glinting off the tips of dead crape myrtle trees in a dirt-swept yard.

My mother would explain to me that they were supposed to keep away evil spirits, just as I had heard that "new paint scares the haints". Blue, seemed to have more magical powers than other colors. Blue paint around windows, blue porch ceilings and blue roofs are all seen in the south and were used to shoo bugs and/or bad vibes.

Going back to ancient times it was believed that spirits could be captured in glass vessels. Think genie in a bottle. And when the wind blows over the rim, you could hear the moaning of lost souls. Back then it made more sense.

I'd been wanting a bottle tree for quite awhile, but didn't have the spot or the talent to build one of the wood and rebar variety. Plus, my neighbors are kinda fancy. Then the opportunity presented itself. Not wanting to tear up a wedged-in bed where a shrub died, I realized I had just the place for my bottles. After all I had been saving different colors and shapes for the day.

I trimmed and shaped the dead limbs for better display, and to be honest it's more of a bottle bush than tree. As last year's garden tour approached and I still hadn't filled it out, my daughter and I took a trip to the liquor store in search of blue bottled beverages. As we suspected, blue bottles often disguise bad wine.

I have heard rumors of other trees here "up north", but figured this was the uppermost boundary for such southern traditions. Yet when I was traveling up the St Croix looking for fall color, I found this totem pole type of bottle tree. So who knows, maybe they reach all the way to Canada. Anyone?

I don't have any photos of authentic bottle trees, but this one comes close. In Dallas this summer I toured a tasteful, contemporary garden that had an alter ego. Beyond the koi ponds and meditation area, a gate lead to a self-described "white trash garden". There grew not only a beautiful blue bottle tree but a mayonnaise jar tree too, filled with odd tokens and found treasures.

I like how my bottle tree is half-hidden, as you come around the corner, there it is; a colorful surprise, a gentle poke at convention and an homage to my southern roots.