A while back I posted about the woven willow fence I was building as a retaining wall in my garden. Since then I have come to love willow branches. They’re one of my favorites of nature’s renewable resources now. After rocks, of course.
I planted potatoes in a narrow bed in my garden in a difficult to use location. It needed a retaining wall and it would have been hard to use rocks like I used them for most other beds. So I started a woven willow fence for the retaining wall.
The potatoes are starting to come up now, and as they grow a few inches, I add more straw around them. It soon became time to add more height to my little woven fence. This morning I went out to cut willow branches to do that.
Coppicing Willows
What makes willow such an excellent natural resource is that they’ll grow right back. It might take a year or two before they’re the same size again. That’s okay, because when I need more branches, I’ll cut them from another stand a little farther down the creek.
There are many such stands of willows here I can use. They’re already coppiced naturally in the creek. So I don’t need to plant them somewhere else.
Now isn’t the best time to cut them, but now is when I needed these. I’ll try to get the rest of my materials during winter so I’m cutting while they’re dormant.
Now I want to make woven willow fences all over the place. But… time. I really need a few clones of myself to do all of the things I want to do. So, I’m just making the fences I can as I can. And right now, the only one is the low retaining wall I’m using for my potatoes.
Raising the Woven Willow Fence
This potato is taller than the existing fence, so that’s why I’m adding more branches. Once it’s higher than the plant, then I can add more straw around the plant. The higher it goes, the more potatoes (theoretically) I should get. That’s the experimental part.
Here’s how it looks with the freshly added branches. I didn’t strip all of the leaves or the smaller side branches from the upper ends. Those leaves will die and fall off, becoming mulch in the path. I can go another few inches on the existing posts I put in initially, but to go any higher than that, I’ll need to put down some more stakes that are taller.
Do you want to:
- learn how to make paints from rocks, soil, or clay?
- Begin Nature Journaling?
- Take virtual plant walks?
- Create nature art or crafts?
Interested in forming a partnership with nature to create art?
