Bottle Art idea instead Of planting Flowers
My dreams of having beautiful planters filled with colorful flowers were crushed. For the first time, my chickens decided to make a snack out of the tender seedlings as quickly as they emerged from the soil.
I had no option other than to get creative with a solution that would give me the color of flowers but wouldn’t look like an all-you-can-eat buffet to my birds. I could go with faux, but the thought of that was out of the question, I could leave the containers bare, or I could come up with a colorful art project that mimics flowers. I went with the last option.
First on my list of things to find was colorful glass bottles. I picked the majority of them up at garage sales for a quarter or fifty cents. I already had the green stems (aka tomato cage supports), so I used them along with my wire cutters to cut them into varied lengths.
I poked them into the dirt haphazardly and placed a bottle on each stake. It’s better than bare dirt, and I’m calling it glass bottle flower art. Flowers are defiantly prettier but Houdini and the chickens just do too much damage for it even to be an option.
I tried to pick bottles with different shapes and sizes. I did notice in my search that I didn’t run across a wide variety of colors. It seems like blues and greens are what I find most often. I’m still on the hunt for orange, and magenta colored glass.
As you can see I can’t take a photo without the birds photo-bombing every shot. Houdini in particular is the worst. She’s always right in my face with whatever I’m doing and she just won’t budge. She’s one stubborn bird that’s for sure.
I’m hoping to develop a new plan for next year so I can grow flowers as I have in past years, but this will have to do for this season.
I know my plan was to share the porch with you but it’s just too darn hot out to pressure wash it like I’d planned so I will share that once it cools down.
That’s beautiful! Great idea! Last year, I harvested the cosmos seeds you sent; this year, I planted them. They have just started to bloom. Thank you again.😊
Anne, thank you for letting me know you were able to harvest the cosmo seeds. Its makes me happy to know you are keeping the seeds and replanting. I’m amazed yours are blooming already. Mine are way behind this year with no rain. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
I wish I could have chickens, (city lifer) I just LOVE chickens! Thank you for giving me a laugh today!!
I love this idea. I must do the same. It’s way too hot to do anything out of doors. I like how you edged with the large rocks.
Betsy
Betsy, I’d love to see your version of this idea. Yes, we have all the free rocks we want around here so they make for good garden bed edging.
Wow – I just love how they look…and such a creative idea, Dawn.
Our stray outdoor cat wants to get in the garden beds. I ended up using a lot of chicken wire cut to size and placed it over wooden stakes, added bird netting, and criss-crossed wooden skewers pointy side up around the edges of my containers. For some containers I wrapped the chicken wire around the diameter. I even made a chicken wire dome for one flower pot. As they filled in I removed most of the chicken wire and netting, although I kept it in some instances. All of these methods were effective.
I also wrapped bird netting around the outside and pounded a wood stake next to my water trough beds. I clipped the netting to the stake with a large binder clip. Then I brought the netting together at the top and “pinned it using wooden skewers. I have stakes in the bed that the netting rests on. The stakes do double duty for staking plants.
Jen, Thanks for all the brilliant ideas. I did make a chicken wire cage to go around my mint, you’ll see it in an upcoming post. I think that idea looks rustic and fits with my decor.