Transplanting your potted willow tree to your garden

As the summer is slowly fading, the colours change and the leaves start to fall, it is time to transplant your potted willow tree to the garden - if you haven't done so yet.

When you first made your tree at our workshop (or bought it) in the spring, the willow rods didn't have any roots yet and you had to leave it in the pot to root and start growing.
It would look like the one in the photo on the left.

When the roots have developed during the summer, you can transplant it to your garden - and by this time of the year you have to do so. First of all the roots may not make it through the winter in the pot above ground, and secondly the woven tree is really 32 willow plants in that little pot - so it really wants to get some more room for its feet.

This morning - still a bit of fog in the air - a woven tree waiting to be planted looks like this one in the photo to the right.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Living Willow Fence - one year later.......

Planting a woven Living Willow Fence has to be one of the fastest ways to create a living wall in your garden.
My woven fence was planted in the beginning of April 2010 and you can see what it looked like by the end of May that same year here.
After pruning in the fall - as I want to maintain the visibility of the shape of the fence - this is what it looked like in mid November the first year.

The following photos are from June this year, the fence being one year old.

If you are not interested in showing the weave, but would rather have a dense hedge, you can at this point weave all the long shoots into the structure.

We don't have a lot of trees on our property, but our neighbour does - and from early afternoon on the hedge is in shade. As you can see, it is doing just fine with the hours of sun that it gets daily.

On the North side of the fence, however the growth is more sparse and you can easily see the woven pattern even at this time of the year. To maintain the fence - so that it doesn't get lopsided - it is important to either prune it at least once (better twice) annually or continually weave any new growth into it.

By the end of July this second growing season the look is very full and the fence is ready for another pruning.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

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.