“Keeping Fondren Funky – one bottle at a time”
My little egalitarian neighborhood is a self-contained village named Fondren buried deep within Mississippi’s capital city, with an impressive mix of folks of all stripes and inclinations. With no HOAs to dictate otherwise, folks are free to “be themselves.” As a result, there is a wide variety of garden expressions that include over 120 glass bottle trees visible from the street – making it, as far, as I know, the densest concentration of bottle trees in the known universe! Pretty sure, but if there is any other place with more of what we horticulturists refer to in Latin as Silica transparencii, I’d love to know about it – the more the merrier!
You’d think that gardeners who display them are in-your-face contrarians. Nope, they simply have a different take, an urge to do something mildly artistic on a very personal level. Unlike “pink flamingo people” who share a camaraderie of sorts as they collectively take a tired stand against conformity (irony, anyone?), bottle tree folks genuinely see themselves as unique individuals doing their own things, cheerily waving their faux stained glass greeting to all who pass.
Here is a smattering – a mere three dozen or so – of the many different shapes, sizes, and styles of bottle trees within a mile of my bungalow in Fondren…wish I could show them all! If you live in Fondren and have one, I probably have a photo – but shoot me an email if you’d like yours included here.
And yes, there are over three times as many not pictured, with more appearing every year.
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