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Hi folks,
A few months ago my local council, at the behest of some neighbours, chopped down a half dozen or so willow trees. There was some issue of roots erupting and the trees starting to lean toward houses, so I won't criticise the neighbours too much for this one!!
Anyway, each of the tree stumps nw has multitudes of shoots erupting out of them, and they are growing unabated. The council don't appear too bothered by it, and I was thinking of coppicing some of the shoots and planting them at home, with a view to creating the living wall of willow I've always wanted and which the wife knows nothing about.... However, I'm a complete novice at anything like this, I wouldn't know how far down the shoot to cut, whether to cut straigh or obliquely, hw long each shoot should be, basically, everything.
I have an area set aside in the garden for a hedge which I was planning to create in the autumn. However, I've heard that willow will grow at any time, and if so, I thought I should get in first before the council realise belatedly what has happened to the tree stumps. And I have no doubt that the council would come back and dig up the stumps- my local council seems intent on turning my local area into sme post- soviet industrial wasteland. Green bad- bricks goood. Hmm.
Does anyone have any advice or experience in doing stuff like this (planting willow, rather than helping myself to wild coppiced willow shoots) as I'd love it if it were possible to do it.
I even love magpies
However you decide to root them the key to success is to keep them watered once planted. If you plant them in your garden this year and we have a summer like this next year, you will need to keep them watered all through next summer. Willow does root easily but it takes a while to get established. Willow prefers damp ground but will grow anywhere once it’s roots are established.
Build it and they will come.