My husband and I were victimized for the first time yesterday by deer. (I am ignoring my hopelessly denuded rhododendrons). They had never bothered to go over the 3 ft fence that we have around our veggie garden and I lived with a false confidence. But yesterday we lost all our cucumbers, soldier beans, soybeans, parsley, lettuce, tomatillos, eggplant, spinach and romaine. My blood boils and my heart breaks! So we quickly extended the height of the fence with deer netting, wooden poles and zip ties. Zip ties have become our go to gadget of choice for solving all sorts of garden and home problems. We think it might be our joint IT backgrounds that make us quickly think – zip tie … we buy them at micro-center rather than Home Depot. Zip ties not only hold together our garden fence now, but also our guinea keet enclosure.
So happy I am about using zip ties, I decided to pull together this ‘Ode to Zip Ties‘ – in my opinion they are able to solve a ridiculously large amount of problems, they can look beautiful (or at least invisible) and they they are so fast, simple and cheap.
This sketch is for a floating island that can be constructed from floating garbage – zip tied together – using the island, floating plants can be protected to create an island — the roots of the plants will purify the water.

From Green Earth Journey.

I love the idea of decorating garden walls with art, but how to hang? Here is a great idea for using zip ties as hangers from a post at Apartment Therapy.

Plan to throw a big party in your garden…maybe with the waste (pull tabs) – and handy zip ties, you can make a chair cool such as this.

Created by designer Carlos Alberto Montana Hoyos and Found via treehugger.

Or if you don’t do canned drinks, maybe you could create this sea urchin chair. Zip ties come in a rainbow of colors, so I am thinking something like this could be a perfect canvas for some color exploration.

found via make via Notcot via Atelier29

Steven Haulenbeek creates these lights from zip ties. I think they are so interesting with a earthy natural look.

Found via Inhabitat

Some other interesting usages… I am intrigued by this story from Mendocino County California where police are considering a zip tie plan for identifying marijuana plants being grown for medicinal uses. You can apply for your serial encoded zip ties before you plant so police will know that your plants are legal.

There is a great article about building an inexpensive hoop style greenhouse – using zip ties at Alberta Home Gardening.

I am brainstorming zip tie garden uses….here is my list….do you have any others to add?
– make a trellis from interesting materials (rebar, bamboo, twigs etc)
– hang a birdfeeder
– install deer fencing
– stake plants

let me know what you have to add to the list.