If you snap or cut a young willow stem from the tree and plant the broken end in some soil, it will grow a set of roots and carry on living!
Willow branches are very flexible and are easy to bend into place. You can really make a very pretty design just by adding more and more pieces – this one was designed and made by my Dad a few weeks ago.
In order to grow, the stems used to make the bench need to be planted about 12 inches deep in the soil. You can see that this one has already started to grow after just a few weeks!
Because the willow is living, it’ll naturally start to grow new stems (which can just be snipped off if they start to get in the way). But it will also be weather-proof like any ordinary tree is, and strong enough to sit on and enjoy the garden.
These chairs are made out of Hazel wood, which is very hard and tough with smooth, shiny bark, making it great for making rustic/quirky garden furniture like this:
Compared with single-stemmed trees like Oak, Birch and Beech, Hazel is more like a very large shrub than a tree, with multiple narrow stems all growing from the base rather than just the one main stem.
To keep them growing healthily they need to be pruned annually, and it’s definitely worth keeping the pruned stems for something useful. For example, stems with lots of small branches make fantastic herbaceous border stakes and can be used to prop-up all tall plants in the border. They also make a good growing frame for climbing plants like beans or sweet peas.
There’s a place near Saffron Walden where you can go and learn how to make your own living Willow and Hazel furniture (which is where these were made). If you’re in the area you should have a go!
About garden nomey
I studied Horticulture at Writtle College in Essex back in the early noughties – it was good fun and a great place to learn, and since then I’ve had various lovely jobs.
I started working as a gardener at Trinity College in Cambridge, which is the biggest of Cambridge University’s colleges. That was the best gardening job I’ve ever had, the gardeners were talented and knowledgeable (and fun!), the college was relaxed and the grounds are extensive and beautiful. There are amazing gardens locked behind ‘secret garden’ doorways in ancient walls, huge perennial borders to tend to, massive hedges to trim (one is 30ft high) and lawns to mow with precision. It was the perfect place for me, as a new gardener, to gain all the experience I might need to see me off into a career in horticulture.
I went on to do various other gardening jobs for a few more years, before deciding that I would like to write about plants. Just as I was wondering how on earth I might get into this (as I was only trained in horticulture), I stumbled upon a Marketing Assistant job with an online and catalogue plant supplier, and they kindly took me in.
This was my dream job at the time and I felt so lucky, I spent every day writing plant copy and gaining experience and knowledge in marketing and website management – something I’d never even thought about doing in the past. As it turned out, I loved it!
Since then I’ve worked for more online plant suppliers, plus magazines including Which? Gardening Magazine and BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine. I currently work as freelance gardener and garden writer and I’m also a full member of the Garden Media Guild. Every single one of my jobs has taught me so much and I think I’ve found my niche – I’m a Gardener, Copy Writer, Garden Marketer, Feature Writer and Online Content Manager!
I’ve been involved in this industry for a good while now. I’ve been to a lot of press shows, I work and have worked with a lot of suppliers and I constantly see people I know in magazines and at gardening events. I really feel like I’m part of this lovely, friendly industry, from both the plant supplier’s and the media’s side, and that makes me very happy.
garden nomey 