Thinking over last Friday's Willow Weaving Course I thought it might be interesting to see how material from the garden is used at this time of year with a couple of different examples.
In this early part of the winter many of us will look to the garden to source decorative festive material for the home. This seems to have its roots in early Greek and Roman culture, and by the middle ages it had developed into a more recognisable form in north-eastern Europe. Much can be found in the garden from the evergreen conifers and herbs to the rose hips and berries found on many trees and shrubs. If you're lucky you may find the dried seed heads of teasels, Ammi, grasses and more.
Any number of plants lend themselves to decoration, the branching twigs of deciduous plants, colourful stems of winter twigs and of course those few flowering bulbs and plants such as hyacinths, daffodils, and hellebores. All can be combined into beautiful and bountiful displays such as wreaths, table, shelf, stair decorations and of course trees. It has the added benefit of being compostable when the New Year/ Twelfth Night arrives.
As the winter rolls on and begins to lean toward spring the time comes to harvest the whippy young shoots from plants such as hazel, dogwood, and willow. These young shoots can be very beautiful in the winter but they are also very useful when twisted and woven into structures used to support the soft-stemmed plants of summer.
On Friday Lin Powell showed how slim shoots of willow could be woven into intricate and strong baskets, numerous other structures and objects. With no need of any additional material such as glue/pins the woven stems of willow hold the structure of the shape in place.
Traditionally the shoots of dogwood and hazel are coppiced, the young shoots are cut to ground level with only 5cm or so left above the stumps (known as 'stools'). Willows by contrast, are more traditionally pollarded where the young shoots are cut back to a trunk (known as a 'bolling'), which stands about 2-4m tall. the reason for this difference is that willows generally stand more exposed in fields and along water edges, and therefore any new growth is vulnerable to being eaten by cattle, sheep and deer. By starting the new growth high-up, out of reach of grazing animals the soft shoots are protected.
Dogwood and hazel more usually grow as underwood in the centre of woodlands, which leaves them more protected from larger animals. Harvesting material to the ground is far easier than harvesting from pollarded trees.
These fast-growing shoots were historically often used for 'wood' for fires hence why large copses exist in woodlands and former woodlands, and why the underwood was largely regarded as the more important product from a woodland.
With wood fires now not so widely used the need for plentiful supplies of coppiced grown wood has diminished but these ancient techniques are still useful in growing a large number of one/two year old stems for use in the garden.
At Blackbrook we have large areas of older hazel coppice from where we harvest poles of about 3-5cm diameters at the base, which we use for the stronger structural supports. Invariably what always looks like a small twig in the copse then looks huge when transported to the garden! For the smaller shoots we have a selection of different dogwoods in the garden, some of which are cut-back every year and others every other year to give some larger shoots. This is good for the aesthetics of the dogwood too as the youngest shoots host the most vibrant colour.
From these plants we are able to harvest our year's worth of garden supports, all free and eventually compostable.
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