Creating a Flea Market glass garden

Adding the colorful sparkle of glass….

For long have our flea market gardeners crafted with glass in the garden.  Here are some of the ways to display glass in your garden, bottles mostly, to their best advantage.  Easy Projects!

 

One of the easiest ways to add color is to arrange colored bottles on slender metal rods angled in different directions, If you know a welder, they can be your best friend at helping you create this look.

Collect glass bottles and gems and tiny glass tiles to add to the sparkle.  The glue we like the best is GEII Silicone for exterior windows,…in clear.  E-6000 is also good.

 

Can you see the wire tomato cage, Cindee Wisniewski uses to support her bouquet of bottles?  We can’t either!  It’s a low key way to set up heavy bottles at the angle you want.   Cindee has created a real glass garden with a row of dish flowers behind her Hosta.

 

 

Nancy K. Meyer tells us, “This collage of my Blue Glass. The bottom left bottle was all given to me by an older lady in one of my card clubs, she knew I liked blue. How sweet is that?  At bottom left are Milk of Magnesia, Bromo Seltzer, and Vick’s bottles.”

 

 

 

 

Cindy McRee says,”These are Bawl’s Guarana bottles; lucky for me that I have nephews that drink it! I cleaned the painted lettering off with The Works toilet bowl cleaner. The Folgers can is the perfect size for three at a time & it only takes 5 minutes to dissolve the lettering, then scrub gently with a metal scrubber. .. Now I need to find another bottle tree!”

 

 

Sherry Law of Recycled by Skattur, says ‘I make Bottle Blooms with my bottles. I wanted to share a picture of some I made last year. I have twelve more Bottle Blooms in the works. Can’t wait to get them finished!

 

Do you glue or drill these, Sherry?

Sherry says, ”These are all glued and because the flowers are on bent rebar, I like them displayed at an upward angle.  They have a lot of weight on the front, so I really glob the glue on and use the glass beads to help cover the glue.

For smaller, light-weight flowers you can use beer bottles, for larger heavier flowers, I suggest using a wine bottle. All these were made with beer bottles as base. They are fun to make and so pretty in the garden that I can’t wait to finish up my new ones!

 

 

 

Cherrie Carine “This is a picture of my stump flower…we lost the tree during a winter storm so I used the stump to make a flower out of blue bottles…I am still putting bottles on as I find them…I just recently found a tall red bottle that I plan to use for the center.

 

Cherrie says, ‘I am starting a layer of green around the top edge.. will eventually have the placement of the red bottle in center…the stump is hollowed out at top and is planted with annuals in summer…I can change the top color with flower colors…such as red geraniums, red salvia, white or pink alyssum, and all.’

 

Carol Hall says, ”My brother gave me a wall hanging wine rack a few years ago. I simply loved it because I like grapes. I don’t drink wine, so have figured out different uses for it. One yr. I put pots in each space, with flowers. This year, I hung it over my deck railing, thinking maybe I could vine flowers on it. The sun shines thru the grapes nicely. Then, I decided to paint some bottles with flowers and stick them in. Looks pretty good even if I’m not a very good painter.”

Rosemary O’Malley says, “This tree has held up through three winters here in Toronto. We added rebar to it. There is a birdhouse that I painted with strawberries at the top. Most of the blue bottles are water bottles from Whole Foods.”

With just one wine bottle, you can make a decorative plant stake or garden accent. The glue we like the best is GEII Silicone for exterior windows,…in clear.  E-6000 is also good for attaching the gems and glass tiles.  I hope you’ll try some of these ideas!