How to Use Glass Bottles for the Garden

Use your glass bottles in the garden rather than recycling them or tossing them out.

Most glass bottles are recyclable, and recycling is better for the Earth than just tossing them in the trash. While you can usually put your glass bottles out on the curb with your other recyclables, the best way to recycle them is to actually reuse them. Reusing an item saves the energy that is used during the recycling process. Explore some of the many ways that glass bottles, with their decorative and useful qualities, can be helpful in your garden at home.

Things You'll Need

• Post hole digger
• Garden hose
• Bottle brush
• Dish soap
• Corks
• Copper posts

Instructions

Colorful Walkway

1. Dig holes along your garden walkway with a post hole digger. Dig one for each bottle you want to place. Dig them only as deep as your bottles are tall.

2. Insert a bottle into each hole upside down so the circular bottoms show on the ground surface.

3. Pack dirt around the bottles tightly with your hands.

4. Soak the walkway with water from a garden hose. After the water dries up, the dirt will harden to cement the bottles firmly in place.

Seed Storage

1. Wash the bottles with a bottle brush, dish soap and warm water.

2. Allow the bottles to dry completely.

3. Place seeds in the bottles and push corks into the tops of the bottles to store seeds until growing season.

Garden Sculpture

1. Soak an area of soil with a garden hose to soften it.

2. Insert copper posts of varying lengths into the soil at different angles.

3. Slide the openings of glass bottles over the copper posts to decorate the garden. The result is a colorful glass garden sculpture.

References

• Green Uses for Waste: Novel Ways to Re-Use Glass Bottles and Jars
• Junk Revolution: Glass Bottles Garden Art