Hedge or Art!? 2 Years growing a living fence from willow 

My poultry thank you! I did not know this👍

He’s got a video from a month ago showing the update take a look at his page

Ull have to trimm it every year to keep it that low lol

The second you look away it will be 15 feet tall lol. If its anywhere close to a road or something you should yse willow to do this.

Should be dog proof too 😅

I will be, and I'll be making another more fancy looking fence this winter

A how to for this one? Did you root the whips before planting? ​@@FieldtoFarm_UK

From what I understand, if you use a metal pole to make a hole in the ground and put the Willow whips right in, they will root themselves.

Sorry for delay about 1ft deep they are pushed in

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I'm sure u have a tree that would work the same 👍

Thanks

It grows stronger over time but yes, you probably need a temporary wire fence or something like that the first year or two. You also want a different pattern with stems about 1.5 times the length of the fence's height planted at a 45 degree angle and interwoven with each other. Hanna Van Aelst has a few good videos showing this technique. There are a few things to keep in mind if you want to use willow fences at farm, some positive, some negative and some can be either. + Willow leaves seem to be good food for the livestock. You can let the animals simply graze on the fence and you can cut all the year's new sprouts in late autumn and feed them to them. (From a nutritional point of view, willow leaves are also perfectly good food for humans but they may not taste that good.) + Willows have wide and shallow root systems. You don't want them along fields you are going to plow and probably not too close to buildings either. + Willows can be rather thirsty and probably not good in a dry climate. + Rather obvious but important to remember: Any living fence/field hedge is permanent(ish). They can make a lot of sense for barriers that are supposed to stand a few years - or even decades - but not for temporary fencing. + When it comes to maintenance, the challenge with living fences is exactly the opposite of "dead" ones. Regular fences deteriorate and need to be repaired and replaced regularly. Living fences grow and need to be cut down to keep them from becoming to overwhelming. When it comes to willows, you want to pollard them agressively: cut down all the year's new sprouts in late autumn or during winter. + A willow fence can offer a couple of options for a little bit of extra income to your farm. Whether these are worth exploiting depends on so many factors so each farmer will have to decide for themselves. The leaves can be used as animal feed (as I already mentioned), stems can be sold to basket weavers and of course, everything you cut off can be used as firewood. Anything you cut off can be used for composting too but as I'm sure you know, you have to be careful with wood in compost; a little bit is good but add too much and your plants will die from potassium OD.

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Thanks and God bless you and your family

That's the plan! 👌👌

Any willow should work 👍

@FieldtoFarm_UK thank you so much for the inspiration. I just bought some hybrid willow tree cuttings, and will stay growing the branches to make my own fence. I love your video, thank you so much!

I think so yeee

Iv just used my willow from the land but any willow you can do this really

Should be fine but u might need to tue it all together more with some hemp rope or something so the structure does wiggle free in the wind

I'm not sure, it's just the willow that isnt wheeping or cracking willows as reference to round here

Both!