Be Inspired to Grow Your Own

I admit as a weaver of Willow I might be a little biased… 

But honestly if you can, I think you should really consider growing some of your own Willow and you don’t necessarily need a lot of space to grow it successfully. Over many years I’ve had the good fortune to be able to grow Willow and to advise lots of different people and organisations, big and small, to grow their own. If you’ve ever been to one of my face to face classes you’ll have heard me talk a lot about the benefits of growing it! I hope with this blog to go into a little more detail and to enthuse you to have a go! 

“Well why should I grow Willow?”  

As well as the obvious answer, that it’s just about the best basketry material to work with… There are a whole host of other reasons why you should consider growing your own. Over the years I’ve come to believe we have a symbiotic relationship with Willow, at least here in the Northern hemisphere. I can’t think of any other living thing that we have such a long and complex relationship with. There are many, many species of this most adaptable tree, over 350 in fact. And as for hybrids including basketry Willows and the Weeping Willow there are many hundreds more. Willows prefer sunshine and water, so long as they have those they can grow almost anywhere.  

One of the earliest plants to flower and to leaf they are an important early source of food for pollinators, birds and mammals, they also produce Salicylic Acid a natural form of Aspirin. This makes them a preferred delicacy for deer, rabbits and all manner of other animals. I sometimes wonder about our distant relatives waiting patiently for prey to arrive near Willow beds for a good clear shot. It makes me wonder is this when we first noticed that when the branches touch the ground they root again? And when we first started to enclose animals into woven pens? A Foot measurement is the ideal distance between posts, is this where our love of maths could have started? Willow is so flexible, forgiving and weavable, edible if also grown for the animals and for medicinal purposes.  

When we grow Willow to use, we don’t grow from seed. There are so many different types of Willow and it is so unfussy with whom it will successfully breed with, to grow from seed means we don’t know what we’ll get. More commonly we grow from clones of the parent tree. A thick, healthy baton (1 piece of Willow approx 1ft or 30cm in length from the base of the rod) is inserted into the ground over winter where it will probably re-root giving a clone copy of the parent tree. 

For the best success rate this needs to be done over winter whilst the Willow is asleep. This gives it time to bed in, form roots and with the warming soil and longer days to then focus energy into leaves and new growth. You can grow Willow for winter colour in your flower beds and borders. With so many varieties available it is possible to grow almost any colour you can imagine. The catkins on many Willows are also beautiful and different Willows have slightly different flowering times if you’re trying to maximize pollinator foraging.  Planted in beds with other plants you can spread them out however you wish. If you want to grow Willow specifically to be able to use the material grown I recommend growing in either a Coppice or a Pollarded rotation. 

Coppice – means cut to the ground, or very close to. For weaving Willow the crop will be coppiced every winter. So once you have planted your batons you will cut the very next winter. You will then continue to coppice every winter. In the first year you may get a few rods, the second winter you will get more and so on until the Willow reaches maturity after the first few years. This will create over time a stool where the rods will grow around the sides. A good stool should have well in excess of 30 rods. 

There are advantages to cutting the willow at different heights. If your aim is to increase biodiversity, coppicing higher will allow more species of Lichens, mosses and other plants to take hold. If you plan on growing a lot and want to invest in a specialist cutting machine, cutting to the ground would be advantageous. If you wish to grow Willow in a coppice rotation, I advise growing in rows 60cm or 24inch apart and within each row growing 1ft or 30cm apart (more for larger Willows). This will force your crop to reach for the light and produce long, thin, unbranched rods. 

As well as growing for weaving material it is also possible to grow for many other resources. Left uncut will allow some or all the Willows to flower, an important food source especially if you keep honeybees. The catkins are beautiful and prized in flower arranging. Left the Willow will start to form branches, will grow longer and become sturdier. This stronger material can be used in fencing and other larger projects. 

There are specific biomass Willows that have a 5 or 7 year rotation that can be used for firewood. This would need wider spacing. It is also possible to grow Willow for the bark, which is another basketry material, lovely to work with and a very pleasing late spring activity! I’ll write more about this in another blog. 

Pollarded – means cut higher up. Pollarded material will need to be grown much wider apart and left to grow until well settled. There are examples of pollarded Willow trees in Cumbria cut above the height of foraging cattle. It is possible to Pollard at any height you wish and there are some lovely examples at Broughton Hall, Skipton, in the Old Walled garden there. 

If you wish to grow enough to weave a few baskets a year, or to make structures for plants to grow up in your garden, a 6ft by 4ft vegetable bed is enough. If you want to grow more and if you wish to grow different varieties research their heights after one year’s growth and how vigorous they grow. For bigger, more vigorous plants grow them at the back of a bed and have the smaller more delicate varieties at the front of your bed to maximise their sun exposure. 

Willow is pretty sturdy, but it will need help to establish. Weed suppressant matting is great, it suppresses the roots of other plants, killing off those plants and providing nutrients for your crop and for holding more water. It is possible to heavily mulch instead, but this is a lot more labour intensive, can be expensive and it is important that the materials used to mulch are not newly cut as these will leach nutrients and possibly burn your babies. 

Once Willow is established, like any other tree they magically make their own soil and mulch by shedding their leaves every winter. If you are having issues with prolonged dry weather, mulching is a fantastic method for adding organic nutrients, matter and water retention to your Willow bed/s. 

Benefits of growing Willow: 

• Bee (pollinator) fodder (over 450 species of invertebrate are associated with Willow, beaten only by the mighty Oak tree)
• Early pollen, nectar and leaves 
• Weaving material of different lengths and widths 
• Poles for larger structures such as fencing and plant supports 
• Bark weaving material 
• Flower arranging 
• Winter colour in beds 
• Soil stabilizer 
• Ideal for flood prone areas 
• Ideal for remediation of polluted areas (Willow is a hungry, thirsty tree and will take up pollutants including heavy metals from land) 
• A Pioneer, so long as it has sun and water Willow can grow almost anywhere, bringing nutrients to a place where other plants and trees can use them. 
• Provides shade 
• Source of natural Aspirin 
• Provides a never-ending supply of materials with multiple uses 
• Compost material 
• Firewood 
• A huge Carbon store, anything that is made the carbon is looked within it and there is no waste, everything is composted or burnt. 
• Connects the grower to the seasons like nothing else I’ve ever worked with! 
• It’s beautiful! 

I really hope with this blog I have inspired you to have a go at growing some of your own Willow. We’ve been growing it for thousands of years and after a short blip during modernity where we have grubbed up much of our Coppice, we are again seeing a massive resurgence of growing this amazing tree. I hope you can join in too. 

For further information: 

• The internet is a fantastic resource! make sure to do your research
• YouTube growers like Hanna Van Aelst, Expedition homestead, Gardens for life and others have some great videos on growing your own Willow  
• The book, Willow by Jenny Crisp. She has been growing Willow for over 30 years and is a Yeoman (Master Weaver) a great book with growing advice and simple weaving recipes 
• Another great guide in book form is Cultivation and use of Basket Willows

Suppliers of Willow that you can grow yourself: 

• https://www.worldofwillow.co.uk/ 
• https://westwaleswillows.co.uk/product-category/living-willow-for-planting/willow-cuttings-rods/weaving/ 
• https://www.yorkshirewillow.co.uk/ 
• There are many more! Please check where you are. If there is a grower near you try and buy locally. 

Joe Gregory 

Creative with Nature