Willow Bird Feeder Classes

My friend Frances - who has a lot of experience working with willow and who is also the treasurer of the Southwestern Ontario Basketry Guild (SOBG) - had talked me into joining her in teaching members of the SOBG to make willow bird feeders.

At the Chatham location - The Chatham Cultural Centre - we had 7 eager members working on their feeders. 

The craft room at the center is large and equipped with lots of tables, chairs and each student had lots of space - which is required for this project.

Sunday's class was held at one of the member's studio in Thorndale. A beautiful space with everything that a basket (or craft) maker can dream of and the 5 students had a great time weaving and enjoying the beautiful view of the gardens and horses in the field. Thank you Linda for hosting this - and your offerings of coffee, tea, wonderful muffins and making sure we were not hungry as we hit the road again, some of us having several hours of driving ahead of us.

I am sure that everyone will enjoy watching the birds that will be frequenting the feeders in months to come.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows

Additional workshop available

As my planned Living Willow Workshops for Saturdays have been fully booked, I have added one more session for Sunday April 10, 2011 at 10 a.m.

If you are interested in attending, please send me a mail at salixlene@gmail.com

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Willow harvest delayed by more snow

Finally last week-end most of the snow had disappeared in the field and we could begin this year's willow harvest.
We managed to harvest about 20% of the rods. Monday and Tuesday I cut a bit more, finished bundeling the rods in the field. By Tuesday  the field was dry enough for me to drive the lawn tractor with my little wagon behind to pick the budles up and take them home.

Then Wednesday morning I woke up to about 10 cm of snow!! And as if that was not enough, it continued on and off all day and by night we have double of that with some drifts as deep as 40 cm - as in the driveway :-)

The next week or so will be cold but sunny and I can only wait..........till it is all gone again - and hope........that I will have time enough to harvest all the willow before it starts growing again.

The bundles look very nice in the snow though and stacked behind the barn waiting to be sorted in bundles with different sizes.

If there is anything good about the snow at this time of the year - yes, they say it is spring and we have changed to "Daylight savings time" - it is the fact that I can let the dogs out without  getting two very dirty, mud dragging boys in the house. Oh well, I tried!!

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Working with living willow - workshop in Toronto at TBG

Toronto Botanical Garden has a full program of lectures, certificate programs and events that are open to the public. If you are a member of TBG, you get discounted rates and some lectures are free.

On TBG's web-site you can find information about all their courses and events and you can download the current program guide.

I am very pleased to be involved in one of the adult courses offered by TBG this spring as I will teach a workshop: Working With Willow on April 16, 2011.

After a short presentation about some of all the things that willow is used for (or has been in the past) we will work on making a Twisted Tree to bring home for the garden.

To register for this event, contact the Toronto Botanical Garden. Registration information can be found here.

I would love to see you there.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Living Willow Workshops Spring 2011

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Learn how to work with living willow rods, twisting or weaving them into potted trees that can be transplanted to your garden later this year.

At the workshops you can choose to make a tree where the trunk is twisted like a rope or woven in a "harlequin" pattern similar to the Living Willow Fence.

The trees you make at the workshop are yours to take home.

Join us at one of the scheduled workshops at Lakeshore Willows - please check under the tab "EVENTS" at the top of the page for dates, time and cost. To sign up for a workshop drop me a mail at salixlene@gmail.com.

Or you can book me for a session with a group of friends - either here at Lakeshore Willows or somewhere else - just contact me for availability etc. 

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Willow Globe for the garden

My friend Frances and I decided to make "Willow Globes" modelled after an image from the net and we were quite happy with the results - considering that we had never worked on structures like this before.

I imagine a few of these in different sizes could ad interest in the garden and I am going to place some among the woven willow trees I have planted in a garden bed for display along with some ornamental grasses.

This one is a big one, but smaller ones could also hang from branches under the canopy of a big tree, swaying in the wind.

If your garden is closed in you can just let a few roll around on the lawn, rolling here and there with the wind. But of course, you can also anchor them at certain desired spots on the lawn or in a flower bed.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Garden Making with Lakeshore Willows

Coming home from "2 weeks in the sun on a beach in Puerto Plata" I couldn't wait to open my spring issue of Garden Making - which was waiting for me, delivered to subscribers the day after we left home.

I subscribed to Garden Making when it was first introduced at Canada Blooms and I have loved every issue.

This time my excitement was different as I knew that Lakeshore Willows is featured in the monthly pages: Gardener's Notebook and I had to find Garden Making in the pile of mail and open it at 2 a.m. just after we arrived home.

My friend Yvonne Cunnington - "Thank you so much for writing this, helping me spread the word about working with willow"

The spring issue went on sale today.




Text and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.