Willow at Farm on the Hill....

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At Farm on the Hill we currently grow eight beautiful types of willow which we now sell as cuttings. click here to see our full range of willow varieties

Planting your Willow....

Willow is an easy plant to grow, suitable for most soil types and locations, and will root easily.

It is best to plant willow during the plant's dormant season (from late December to mid March). Willow can be planted at other times of the year if the cuttings are already rooted.

A good way to plant willow is through a hard wearing weed suppressing fabric, this will allow the plants to be a very low maintenance addition to your garden or plot.

• Lay down and secure your weed suppressing fabric.
• lay cuttings at required distance. I usually make 2 rows of cuttings along a  sheet of membrane, with each cutting being between 25-40 cm apart depending on variety with the finer varieties being planted at the closest intervals.
• Make holes through the fabric with a metal spike and then push the cuttings into the hole leaving approximately 5cm of the cutting above the surface
• leave to grow...
  

Willow and it's uses...

The uses of willow are many and date back thousands of years.

Within our own culture willow has been used for centuries in basketry, agriculture, house and boat buiding, charcoal and fuel production and medicine. 

Recent interest in willow includes its use for water filtration, as a renewable fuel resource, for garden hurdles, basketry.....and of course as a great plant for the domestic garden, whether as a multicoloured hedge, living structure, wildlife habitat or wind break.

 Willow is a very fast growing plant (some varieties can grow in excess of 3 metres a year) and responds well to coppicing (cutting back to ground level).
Coppicing encourages new shoots to grow producing a bushier plant and providing the grower with a regular supply of rods for weaving or fuel.

It's great to be able to harvest your own willow rods, whether you use them to weave a basket, a fence, use them as plant supports or take cuttings and plant living structures, willow in  your garden is great fun, a lot of use, encourages wildlife, and on top of it all, is a beautiful plant to both look at and work with.

Vivid coloured stem through winter followed by catkins in spring and leaves in vary shades of blue and green throughout the year make willow the perfect garden plant.

Every garden should have some willow


gardeners tip..... stand willow cuttings in a bucket of water, after a few days the water can be used as rooting hormone for other plants