Saturday 16 June 2012, 9.30-4.30pm We are very pleased to announce that our good friend and ace basket maker, Martin Hazell, has agreed to lead a day’s tutoring at our farm in Upper Gravenhurst. If you have a hankering to dip a toe into the wonderful world of basket making this is an ideal opportunity. […]
Sometimes things go wrong and when I’m working on my own it’s doubly difficult to cope with. After nearly three hours making a huge willow ball recently, it just didn’t feel right and whatever I did seemed to make things worse rather than better. In the end it burst open like a horrible balloon accident, creating something that looked […]
I ran a day’s course for a group of Bedfordshire gardeners last Saturday, all of whom, apparently wanted to know how to make an obelisk from willow. After a week of hot, sunny days, during which I’d got sunburnt (odd for March around here), Saturday turned out decidedly cold with a penetrating wind blowing from the north-west. […]
After a couple of days work I’ve finished this thirty metres of open weave willow fence. It took a while to decide exactly where to go with this job. I’m always very careful about recommending the use of living willow – it can be a right pain once it gets going and in the wrong place its speed […]
It may be hard work getting the stuff cut, sorted, bundled and safely inside; and it’s certainly bitterly cold at the moment, but on a day like today the willow looks completely wonderful. A miraculous transformation takes place sometime in the autumn and I’m still not sure exactly when. From a more or less uniform greenish […]
Sorting willow for length We’ve started cutting willow at last. At this early stage, as usual, it feels like an ordeal, but we’ve made some progress this week and the weather has been fairly kind – just an hour of rain so far. The quality seems good this year although in some varieties quantities are […]
Starting to collect sticks together for some hurdle jobs and hedge stakes, I’ve been cutting sallow or goat willow, Salix caprea. Now I know some of you will scoff at my use of willow for hedge stakes. Actually I know some of you will get quite cross about it. Everyone knows that willow will grow if used in a hedge, so […]
It may be a cliché, a British farmer discussing the weather, but it has been strangely hot this week. Actually it’s been beautiful – high 20s celsius, often with a breeze and not too humid. But now it’s October, the leaves are turning, it’s dark by 7pm and we’re still wearing T-shirts – strange […]
Spring has arrived with a flurry of orders for pea sticks, bean poles and obelisks of all sorts destined for the gardens of those who are rather more prepared for the coming season than us. Some years we never quite reach a state of preparedness. I’ve made a huge obelisk today, which is an order for […]