We've been planting hundreds of trees here on the farm over the last few years, fruit trees as well as oaks, birch, rowan, hazel and also willows which all started from a bunch of sticks that our friend, Azzi, gave us. We are planning a lot more tree planting this year so I've been getting some propagation on the go. Willow just must be about the easiest thing to grow so a great place for anyone to start. If ever you want to see the power of nature first hand just pop a fresh willow cutting in some water. Willow has lots of uses, as a fast-growing fuel, (maybe the fastest:
www.thewillowbank.com, ) as well as a material used in all sorts of things from baskets to guitars. It has a lovely graceful bambooish look to it too.
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| The willow grove at the foot of of our plot, these ones are just a couple of years old and had a difficult start due to rabbit attack. All the same, some of them were reaching twelve foot tall. I've pruned them back and saved the cuttings to propagate more trees. |
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| It's easy: you stick your cuttings in a jar of water and wait for a few weeks... |
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| ...by which time they start to sprout various shoots... |
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| ...and rootlets, ready to go into a pot or into the ground. |
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| It's still a bit cold out so these ones have gone into pots in the polytunnel. |
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| It seems to be working a bit more slowly with hazel too, which is a bit exciting as it's not the recommended way of propagating hazel. As Chris Dixon says, "The plants don't read books." |
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| Lots going on in the polytunnel already. |
