Willow Planting Part I

The summer season is most definitely over, and I’ve moved onto preparing for future harvests, that is between messing and creating with dried flowers and using this year’s willow harvest to make stars. I have decided I need more willow trees in my life and have purchased a further175 cuttings of 9 different varieties, some whose have lovely coloured catkins in pink, black and yellow, and others that lovely, coloured bark, to add to my current collection of 40 (14 different varieties, 3 I’ve bought more of). I think 20 different varieties is probably enough now!!!

The first batch of 110 arrived a week or so ago and are now planted in their forever home in a section of our field that is very wet (hopefully not too wet), the next lot are due to arrive in January.  To try to supress weeds, and because I don’t want to use mypex as it is plastic and will leech into the soil, I have mulched with some old hay that is well passed its sell by date and is beginning to decompose in its wrapper. Sadly, we had to have it wrapped in plastic as we had nowhere to store it now that our barn is no more. On the plus side though, the trees should love it, it has developed lovely white threads of mycelium and some of it smelt amazing, good enough to eat (no I didn’t try it). I use whatever I have to hand as a mulch, when I planted the eucalyptus that didn’t survive (except one that is looking really great) I used sheep’s fleece (I’m blaming the weather and the fact that I moved them for them dying, not the mulch).