The wonders of willow

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Willow is a useful element in winter garden design. Different species and cultivars display a range of colours in their young stems, from purplish-black to bright green, yellow and red. Often gardeners coppice or pollard willows in early spring to stimulate a fresh flush of new stems over the growing season.

But some go a step further to create surprising designs: Willow stems, or rods as they are known, are strong and pliable and have, for centuries, been woven into baskets, fencing hurdles or as the structural mesh in wattle and daub. And it’s not just dead harvested rods that can be used for weaving. Living willow can be intertwined to create architectural shapes and art forms that add year-round structure and focal points to a garden.

Willow plants also support a wealth of insect life, as grower Peter Little, of Yorkshire Willow, has experienced first-hand. He supplies rods and a range of living willow kits to create structures such as domes, arbours and tunnels. “Where we are in the Pennines seemed bare when we moved here. We put in around 20,000 willow trees.”

Now the bird life is far richer and Little observes bats on a summer evening “hoovering up the insects”, he says. “There’s a whole ecosystem around the willow which wasn’t here at all 25 years ago when it was dairy fields”.

Heinrich Braun is the designer behind Baugaarden Living Art, a venture he can trace back to 2002, when a friend gave him and his wife two sticks of willow as a housewarming present. The couple were originally from the Danish countryside and had just bought an old farm as a step back towards rural life. “Stick them in the ground and they will grow!” the friend told him. “I knew nothing,” says Braun, but did as he was told.

willow grown in the shape of a dome
A living willow dome at Yorkshire Willow

They rooted and grew quickly. The way that one cutting could provide material for 10 more over a growing season fascinated Braun. He began to explore ways to grow and use willow.

Baugaarden Living Art now offers 11 designs. The “Willow Wand”, with its plaited stems forming a trunk, can be grown as a standalone tree, or in a line to form a pleached hedge. “Sif” is another popular design, a cylinder designed to sit over an uplighter. At night the living sculpture then casts interesting shadows and can mark out a drive or pathway.

Braun predicts his “Living Umbrella” will become very popular. In winter the intricate beauty of the woven framework creates a focal point in the garden — in summer, with the crown in leaf, it casts some useful shade. Living willow artforms can be planted in the ground or containers.

Braun is always looking to create new shapes with willow. He is currently working on a “living pavilion” and also experiments with different species and varieties. He is keen on bay willow, Salix pentandra, which has leaves like a bay but is much hardier, and the leaves release a lovely scent. The disadvantage is that it is slow growing and therefore not suitable for tall structures, plus it is hard to come by.

He also uses vigorous Salix daphnoides, which has attractive white catkins in early spring. Salix purpurea x daphnoides Bleu has beautiful grey leaves, not unlike an olive tree’s. Braun works with clients on bespoke projects and can create a living willow structure based around a logo or initial letters — a living monogram.

Several ‘Sif’ design willows in a row
Several ‘Sif’ design willows form a fence for privacy

But gardeners don’t necessarily need help to create their own projects. A living fence — or “fedge” — is simple to make and can create a garden “room” or hide a compost bin, fuel tank or dustbin area. They also make excellent wind filters — better than a solid fence, which can create turbulence. Salix alba and Salix purpurea cultivars are suitable, and available as living willow rods that behave as giant cuttings, rooting in the ground.

Willow has a reputation for blocking drains with its vigorous roots. The individual plants in a willow structure are growing very close together and their height is restricted. This limits their root run but, to be on the safe side, do not plant a living willow feature closer to drains than its eventual height. Also, says Little, willow doesn’t like being planted in the shade of big, established trees.

Little does a lot of work for schools. Children enjoy helping with willow creations. Domes with an entrance tunnel, a sort of willow igloo (a wigloo), are the most popular. He also makes long bendy tunnels — millipedes and centipedes — and he is responsible for more than one shark’s fin emerging from the school grounds.

willow in the shape of a tunnel
A willow tunnel, Yorkshire Willow
Willow in the shape of an umbrella in a winter landscape
‘The Living Umbrella’ by Baugaarden Living Art

When it comes to maintenance, Little recommends letting willow grow away during the spring and summer and then cutting right back to the original shape in the winter. You can, if you prefer things tidier, give the new growth a light trim once or twice over the summer as well.

In the Pennines, Little has never had to water newly planted willow but he accedes that in the south of England, if its first summer is very dry, it might need watering. In dry, free-draining gardens willow can also be planted through holes in a membrane, which keeps the moisture in the ground and can be covered with bark chips to disguise it. 

Grown as a simple screen, a giant creepy-crawly or a sophisticated uplit artwork, willow is a truly versatile addition — and can provide intriguing shapes in an otherwise bare winter garden.

How to create your own willow screen

A willow screen by Baugaarden Living Art

You need 42 rods for each metre length of screen. Trim off 30cm from the tip off each rod and cut the base at an angle to make it easier to insert into the ground, which you’ll need to prepare beforehand, removing plants, turf or weeds and forking over the soil.

Willow structures are strong once established but a screen needs some extra support, so install fence posts at 2-metre intervals. Once you have laid out the willow rods, mark at 15cm intervals along the proposed line of your “fedge”. Insert groups of three rods by each mark at a sideways angle of 30-40 degrees from the vertical, pushing their cut ends into the soil to a depth of 15cm-20cm. Then work in the opposite direction, inserting rods at an opposing angle.

Once you have all the rods in place, it is time to start weaving. Work along the screen from the base up, bringing the rods in front and behind each other to make a diamond or harlequin pattern. Secure as you go with cable ties. The willow that extends beyond the end poles can now be doubled back and tied to complete the pattern. Trim the fedge along the top to a uniform height and you can remove all but the top row of cable ties. JC

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