Planting willow in your garden for colour?

It is not unusual to find articles in gardening magazines showing the very colourful stems of willow in the wintertime and most often the featured willows are varieties or hybrids of “white willow”, Salix alba.
Here are a few pointers that are often overlooked.
First of all it is ONLY the growth from the previous growing season that has colour. If you leave your willow shrub unpruned, you will end up with a large shrub with a few small, colourful tips during winter. Therefore – to really get a beautiful colour display you should coppice (cut down to the ground) the plants late winter/early spring as they will grow long shoots during one growing season and they will all have coloured bark. To make a real statement you could plant several plants of the same variety close together (about 30 cm/1foot apart). If you have a small garden and are worried that planting several willows will be too much for your other plants, you can repeat the coppicing (cutting down to the ground) in early summer. Supposedly (and I say that because I don’t have any personal experience/knowledge of this, but have read about it) the willow will not develop a large root if it has to use energy on new growth once or even twice annually.
In my opinion it is not only for winter colour that you plant willow in the garden. Many of the willows have very beautiful foliage, form and colour throughout the year. To illustrate this I have found a few photos:
I will start with Salix x ‘Flame’ as that one is often mentioned as a candidate for winter colour.By the time the leaves drop off, the bark has developed some colour that will intensify as the weather gets colder.
 
Salix x ‘Flame’ has beautifully coloured leaves in spring and early summer and the stem colours will vary from a light greenish/yellow/orange to a darker reddish brown. The two photos marked July 2012 are of the same plant, but photographed from the North and South sides of the plant. The more sun that the plant gets the darker the colour during the summer and these stems are darker on one side than on the other.
Another willow that has been planted in a lot of gardens during the last few years is the dabbled willow, Salix integra ‘Hakuro Nishiki’. A large shrub with pink shoots can look very beautiful, but as you can see on the following photo this willow can also be planted in your mixed bed, coppiced annually and it just looks lovely.
 

The variegated leaves are beautiful and the tip of the branches continue to be of an almost coppery colour during the summer. After the leaves have dropped the stems on this willow is a paler reddish brown.
One of my favourite willows (I have quite a few) is Salix koriyanagi ‘Rubykins’. It grows tall and slender one year rods when coppiced at the end of winter.

The very first leaves in spring are an incredible coral/peachy colour. Later the leaves are darker green, but the tips of the branches remain very colourful as you can see on the photo. Maybe that explains the name ‘Rubykins’? The last two photos show the light green colour of the stem. That is also the colour that the stems have during winter.


The last variety featured today is Salix x acutifolia
 

The winter colour of acutifolia is a very unusual and pretty dark purple that gets a bloom – a whitish waxy covering. If the plant is not coppiced the colour of the two year old branches will look almost as if they have been white washed. On the second photo you can see the red stems on the new growth and at the bottom of the photo you can see the two year old whitish stems (it is a braided Harlequin tree)

Pruning to renew growth, shape

The Twisted Willow trees and the Harlequin trees that we made in the spring need a bit of maintenance to keep looking their best.
You want the plants to appear like a tree - with a trunk and a crown - but as the rods that we planted start to root and grow, they will naturally set shoots along the length of the rods. The shoots on the "trunks" of the trees have to be pinched off during spring and  summer to keep the shape of the trees while the shoots in the top are allowed to grow. If you fail to do so, you will end up with a very bushy shrub in the pot.

Keeping the twisted trees (from left: Salix x 'Flame, S. 'Americana', S. integra 'Hakuro Nishiki', and S. x acutifolia) free from shoots on the "trunk" is fairly easy as you basically just rub your hand down the trunk while the shoots are small. As you may see on the photos, the different varieties have different habits as to how many shoots they grow and how easily they are pinched off.

The Harlequin tree takes much more work and the variety in the picture, S. koriyanagi 'Rubykins' will have a lot of shoots in the spring and early summer with fewer shoots continuing to show up during the rest of the growing season and the following years.

In the photo to the left I have removed all the shoots and the trunks look clean and smooth.

When pinching off the shoots it is important to be careful not to damage the bark on the tree. If the shoot has been left too long you may rip some of the bark off if you "rub" or pull on the shoot - risking that that particular willow rod will die. If the shoots have been allowed to grow too big, it is a good idea to pinch them off with your finger tips or cut them off with a small pruning tool.

As the plants grow, you will also like to encourage the crowns to "fill in", get bigger and fuller. This is accomplished by pruning the crown a few times during the summer - starting when the individual shoots in the crown are about 25 cm long, cutting off about 10 cm.

On the left are the trees before pruning - I was late with the first pruning this summer - and on the right the same tree after it has been pruned.

The top tree is S. x acutifolia

The bottom tree is S. koriyanagi 'Rubykins'

They look a little "stunted" right after this operation, but the plants respond by developing two or more new shoots for each tip that has been cut off and after a few weeks you will have a larger, bushier crown.

This is what my very first Harlequin tree looks like now, planted in the garden.

Workshop fun!

We had three workshops here in April and I believe that everyone - not just me - had great fun. I met some really wonderful fellow gardeners, people enthusiastic about doing something different and I have received a lot of positive feed-back.

My friend, garden writer, author Yvonne Cunnington posted about her woven willow creation on her blog. Garden writer, editor and Master Gardener, Lorraine Flanigan was spreading the word about Living Willows at a presentation at Bolton Horticultural Society. Claudette Sims, a  Halton Master Gardener would like to be able to show fellow master gardeners some willow workshops next spring. Judy and Caroline are arranging a group visit here later and I have several people expressing interest for next year's workshops already.

Salix integra 'Hakuro Nishiki' (Japanese Dappled Willow) was a popular choice of variety for the twisted tree.

'Hakuro Nishiki' is a beautiful willow at all stages. The photos show (from left to right) how the foliage changes during the summer. When the new leaves start to unfold, they are a tender cream and green (sometimes a pinkish white), but then, for about 4-6 weeks in June-July, the tips of the shoots are a stunning pink. We have even had hummingbirds hoovering at the plants, thinking that they were flowers to feast on. Later in the summer the leaves are green with big splashes of creamy white and some coppery tones on some of the tips of the branches.

Salix x acutifolia - shown on these photos - was also available for the twisted tree. The bright colours on willow stems are only showing on new, one year old branches. On most willow varieties the older branches turn various colours of green or brown, but this one is quite different. The photo on the left shows the dark burgundy colour on the rods just after harvest in the spring (so they are still one year old). Soon after the new growing season starts, a white bloom is covering the stems and they stay like that for the rest of the season to turn almost black come spring. The photo on the right is a close up of the plant in summer - the new shoots bright red while the older wood on "the trunk" is white.

Salix x 'Flame' was picked for a couple of twisted trees, and Salix koriyanagi 'Rubykins' - in this photo - and Salix 'Americana' were available for both the twisted tree and the harlequin tree.

Thank you all for participating, for the great feed-back, and for your enthusiasm for "Willows". Thank you Lorraine for allowing me to use some of your photos from the workshop.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Living Willow Weaving - Workshop

Over the past couple of years I have been working with living willow creations, making "potted trees" for use in the garden, on the patio, at your front door, or anywhere you would like a small ornamental tree. After a season or two it is transplanted to the garden as it gets too "crammed" in the pot.
I am holding two workshops here for anyone who would be interested in participating, making their own tree or two. Two different "models" will be taught with choice of using different willow varieties for the trees:

A "basic" twisted tree (with variations), simple and classy. As the tree grows the 9 willow whips used to create the "twist" will - as they grow and expand - eventually grow together and look like a thick rope.

A "fancier" "Harlequin" tree. The pictures show use of a few different willow varieties as well as both summer and fall foliage of Salix koriyanagi 'Rubykins'. The willow whips in the "trunk" on this tree will also over the years fuse together as they grow.

Workshops scheduled:

Saturdays April 10 and April 17, 2010.

Start 10 a.m. Length of the workshop will depend on "model" and number of trees.

11770 Lakeshore Rd, Wainfleet

There's a $ 10 cover fee + cost of materials: Twisted tree $ 35.00, Harlequin tree $ 115.00

Bring your own lunch. Coffee, tea, and water is on me.

Please contact me by mail (find it under "Who is Salix" on left panel) to sign up or if you have any questions about the workshops.

Hope to see you there.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.