I've never tried goo gone but twice now I've put what I thot was red colored glass in the dishwasher but it wasn't colored glass but some sort of colored coating over white/green glass. This coating turns cloudy in the DW and I've had to scrape it off. On this last one DH used paint remover which worked fairly well except for the crevasses. I really need to look closely at cheap YS colored glass before I buy it.

Digger, I had to chuckle when I read your message. That sounds so like conversations with my engineer hubby when we approach a new project. I just went out and looked a one of my bottle trees. The "nails" are at 45 degree angles to the post and there are four in each row equally spaced around the post. The offset rows are 4 inches below the row above it. Allows you to use lots of bottles and looks better with the smaller (beer) bottles. Good luck with your project. If you don't have a lot of bottles only add nails to the top third of the post it will look like a bouquet. If you add nails to more of the post it will look more like a tree with branches. Hope that makes sense.

I'm glad you asked this question Sprout. I have the bottles but no tree, and I'd love to hear about details. Bottles: I like wine, and I like it even better if it comes in a blue bottle, lol. A friend of mine loves reisling which almost always comes in a blue bottle, so when I'm closer to actually making a tree, I'll ask her to save me some. Harvey's Bristol Cream (a sweet dessert wine) comes in 2 sizes. It takes a long time to drink a whole big bottle, but I just know I'll use the bottles someday. There are other "regular" wines that come in blue bottles. Also some fancy water comes in blue bottles. Sometimes I'll buy a bottle of it if I'm having company. I've also saved "bottle green" pretty green colored bottles, but finally gave up and recycled some of those. Kind of silly to keep when I'm not using yet. Other folks have asked at restaurants or bars for bottles. Red is the hard color to find because its expensive to make red glass. Kathy

We had a few of our bottle brushes mowed to the ground a couple years ago and they are all growing healthily and have gotten over 5' tall in the time since the 'crime.' We are just letting them grow in a bush form, but I think they would be more than vigorous enough to train into a tree form if we wanted to. I would follow calistoga's advice and add to it just be patient, it's hard but a lot of times the best thing for an injured plant is to give it some time to grow. Good luck!