Growing Willow
My husband just planted basketry and furniture willow at our "farm" in Chippewa County. He ordered the willow cuttings from Bonnie Gale of English Basketry Willows in New York State. I met Bonnie Gale in the early 90's during a willow conference near Liverpool, England. The conference featured artists, biologists, craftsmen, urban planners, and business people. At Ness Gardens, we participated in making outdoor sculptures, learning about the great variety of willow types, the many ways of growing willow, and how willow can be used to create sound barrier fences in neighborhoods near busy motorways.
Bonnie has been growing willow since the early 80's and teaches traditional willow basketry skills. She founded the American Willow Growers Network to share information and exchange cuttings. Her page on living willow structures is interesting.
Some of my structures contain willow growing wild on our farm. I will be able to harvest a greater variety soon.
Bonnie has been growing willow since the early 80's and teaches traditional willow basketry skills. She founded the American Willow Growers Network to share information and exchange cuttings. Her page on living willow structures is interesting.
Some of my structures contain willow growing wild on our farm. I will be able to harvest a greater variety soon.
Labels: baskets, Bonnie Gale, craft, influences, willow
posted by Christina at 7:04 AM
8 Comments:
The willow has so many memories, mostly kids crawling around in or under them at one house or another... a family friendly tree so suited to your work. KJ
Yes, KJ. As I said, there are so many ways to grow willow. For basketry, you harvest it yearly, and use the withees. So it never becomes that big willow tree for kids to climb. For cricket bats, you grow it another way, for hedges to keep livestock, another way. England has a long history of this. Coppicing is one way to grow it, and I am not sure what that means. Maybe that is when the lower branches are pruned off.
Ahhh.. Here is a Wikipedia link to coppicing. It is cutting the tree low and allowing shoots to grow. I will be coppicing! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppice
Coppice away! I'm so glad this is working out for you--and I also love the pieces pictured below for the St. Paul gallery....
This is all very interesting to me as I've been picking up thrift shop baskets and through other cheap sources, painting and refinishing for our lake house... but the basket links you gave are encouraging me to take it further... not the weaving part, but the finishing. And all the new terms! Coppicing! Who knew? There's another term for similar pruning, have sent for help to remember it... will let you know.
Here's the term I'd forgotten, pollarding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding
It's a process I was quite taken with when in France last spring.
Yes, pollarding is cutting off the top and allowing shoots to grow from the trunk. There is a wonderful image on the wikipedia site for pollarding. It is from the Netherlands. When you pollard, animals can graze between trees. The Europeans have traditions for taking care of valuable scarce land.
Yes, we do!
The link to the images of the pollarded willows are so utterly part of my Dutch imagery of landscape. We call the pollarded trees 'knotwilg' and I think you will understand the term. Wilg is willow. Their dark silhouettes used to line the ditches in the polders, they were cut back every other year. The year they had branches they would be full of pussy willows in spring.
I love the baskets you showed on your blog! Such pureness in form and material.
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