Willow weaving workshop

On 1st of December the Royal Parks gardeners plus some of the Queen's Orchard volunteers attended  a Willow weaving workshop hosted by James Buchanan.

The "mission of the day" was pruning and tiding up the willow tunnels James created in the playground area of Greenwich Park two years ago.

Working with alive plants means to control and check their growth in a way that supports and strengthens the structure every once in awhile.

Autumn or winter are the best periods for pruning and arranging the new shoots to tidy up the shape of a living willow tunnel because the plants are dormant and removing the tip branches does not encourage the growth of other shoots until the following Spring.

As the willow has quite flexible branches and relatively thin, the weaving requires bending the young shoots among the pre-existent structure and tying them to the other branches avoiding to break them.

In order to strengthen the structure, the pruned hazel branches are weaved within the existing willow branches or as a base for the fences.

Despite the chilly weather, it was actually a very engaging bright day. A big thank you to all the people attended the workshop and especially to James Buchanan for sharing his experience and knowledge with us.