Trees in your garden, do you make use of them?

[Paul_B]

I'vwe seen interesting willow structures where both ends are stuck in the ground and it looked like new willow was growing out of both ends. It seems to me to be the easiest to grow from cut lengths of all trees from the UK.

 

[Laurentius]

In my experience it is very hard to kill a willow, it is also hard to know what species you are dealing with because it hybridises so easily. Most of what I deal with is crack willow, you can tell that by the way the branches and twigs break off, which is part of their survival strategy as they grow where they fall. I have grown a hedge out of a log from the trunk of one I had pollarded, I left the log on the ground and it shoots just kept on coming up.

It is this feature that makes willow very productive, and I have made many things from all that surplus including tent poles, walking sticks, axe and other tool handles. You can train it to bend and all sorts. I have also used it to make the posts of a four poster bed, a bathroom support, and decorative things too. Since it grows out of hand too easily I trim my hedges as often as needed as you would privet.