Project: Bottle Garden Bed Edging

While I was out on a computer consulting call, my wife and son started in on this project. We had seen edging like this in the past and I also did some Google Image searches to see how others had used empty glass bottles in their garden.There are a variety of ways to do it, but I think this is one of the most traditional. For the last 5-7 years these beds had been edged with limbs from the numerous small trees that needed to be removed due to over-planting. It has taken quite a long time for those limbs to decompose, but it was now evident that something else had to be done.

(You can click each photo for a larger version from my Flickr Photostream)

As avid wine drinkers, we knew we would have a certain number of bottles to start with and we also put out the call to our friends and family to start saving their bottles as well. I am sure we will have plenty to finish the small bed in no time.

After seeing how they had placed a few bottles I realized they needed to be buried much deeper to keep them stable. We could have gone a bit deeper still, but the ground around these beds is very hard and I think this makes the best match between stability and design. You need to have some part of the bottle shoulder embedded in the dirt or the bottle will be too easy to tip as people walk by.

Some might have elected to remove all the labels from the bottles first, but I think nature will take care of that over time. The sun will bleach them and the rain and watering will loosen them. Depending on how this first batch fares, we might decide to “plant” them a bit lower or hill up around the bottles more. It will also be interesting to see how they effect our raking of leaves within these beds. It will probably make it a bit more difficult as they are quite high compared to the edging we had there.

We noticed immediately how the glass catches the sunlight as it plays across the garden. I think it will add a very nice look and add another point of interest to the garden.