Hillsborough Bottletrees

Welcome to Hillsborough Bottletrees

06/07/2012 · Filed under General

Hillsborough Bottletrees is a project started by two elementary school students in Hillsborough, NC, to locate and list all the bottletrees in our town and surrounding areas in Orange County.

If you have a bottletree and want to be included on here please contact us! If you know someone with a bottletree, please tell them about this project.

You can email us your photos, and we will upload them here for the collection. Tell us all about how you made your tree, and why, and anything else you want to share. If you don’t have any pictures, we will come and take photos for you!

You can contact us at hillsboroughbottletrees@gmail.com. More information and FAQ on our About page.

Thank you!

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Mother’s Day Bottletree with Wisteria Flair

05/07/2013 · Filed under Bottletrees, Wood

We enjoyed seeing this unique bottletree/birdhouse in Dogwood Acres in Chapel Hill, and we found out that the owner of this tree received it as a Mother’s Day present a few years ago! What a great idea!

You can see that this tree is also covered in wisteria vine, which blooms out in the spring and almost completely hides the bottles. What a lovely, ever-changing, seasonal bottletree.

Thank you to Deb for sending in the picture!

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All-blue glass and rebar tree in nearby Person County

04/25/2013 · Filed under Bottletrees, Wood

Thanks very much to Patty in Roxboro who sent in a picture of her bottletree. We think this one looks the most like a REAL tree of many that we have come across. That’s a lot of blue bottles! Here’s what she says about her tree:

“I have been fascinated with bottle trees since I was a child and saw my first one in Missouri. My husband scraped the bark off of a downed tree and then shellac’ed it, then drilled the holes and cut the rebar for my bottles. The recycling center in Roxboro was gracious enough to save them for me.”

We think shellacking the tree was a smart move! We’ll have to file that away for future reference. A lot of people say that they like the look of wood trees but they don’t last as well as metal. We bet the shellac will help with that.

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Colorful Bottletree is like a Christmas tree all year ’round

04/17/2013 · Filed under Bottletrees, Metal

This gorgeous, colorful bottletree was originally in Hillsborough on Cameron Street, but the family moved to Carrboro and relocated the tree to their new home (one benefit of having a metal tree).

We like the amazing variety of colors on the tree, and we especially love this picture of it in the snow. Just beautiful!

The tree was built by a metal artist in Raleigh, and was a gift to the family from their mother, who has her own bottletree in Burlington, NC. Two generations of bottletrees!

Thanks so much to Elisabeth for sending in these lovely pictures.

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The Giant Bottletree up on the Hill

03/21/2013 · Filed under Bottletrees, Wood

Many Orange County drivers will be familiar with this tall, wild looking bottletree up on a hill, on a large homestead off of Old Highway 86. We love how full and cheerful it looks!

This is probably the biggest bottletree we’ve seen in our Orange County searching. Make sure to look for it if you’re driving out that way.

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New book on bottletrees by Felder Rushing available now

02/17/2013 · Filed under General, Resources

Bottletree expert extraordinaire, Felder Rushing, has a new book now available. Bottle Trees and the Whimsical Art of Garden Glass, copyright 2013. You can order it on Amazon or from your favorite local bookshop.

We can’t wait to see all the pictures and read about his travels around the country seeing garden glass of all shapes and sizes!

Bottle Trees: …and the Whimsical Art of Garden Glass

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Glass fishing weights from Jerusalem

02/06/2013 · Filed under General

Spring was in the air! Then it wasn’t, then it was again, and then it snowed.

On one of our snowy days, when it was too cold to go out and search for more Hillsborough bottletrees, we snapped this photo of a mobile in our dining room. These are glass fishing net weights that our family got in Jerusalem. The story goes, fishermen put these on their nets to weigh them down in the water until they pull the nets back up again.

In the sunlight, they sparkle just like the glass on our bottletree, bringing a little bit of that glittery sunlight inside on a cold day.

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Where to buy metal bottletrees

01/09/2013 · Filed under General, Resources

We often get emails from readers asking if we know of anyone around the Triangle area who sells welded metal bottletrees. We do have a source for you, listed below. For the most part, though, the metal bottletrees pictured on this blog were either homemade, made by someone’s friend or relative, or built by Orange High School’s welding class. If you want to buy a bottletree, there are usually local ads on Craigslist, or you could find one online if you don’t mind paying for shipping.

If you buy a bottletree, take a picture and send it to us! If you find a great local source for someone who makes them, please let us know, and we will share the info here.

Happy New Year!

Source for metal bottle trees, Raleigh NC: Mobile Welding Tech — berglundryan@gmail.com.

“Every tree is custom handmade and is slightly different. These solid metal trees stand 7′ tall and are strong and easy to install. They do not come with the bottles. The bottle trees are not painted because most people like them best with the rusty look. However, we can paint them black for no additional charge.

The cost of the 7′ bottle tree is $90.00 and the 5′ bottle tree is $65.00. We also have decorator bottles for sale for $5.00 each.”