{"id":3468,"date":"2021-08-16T07:15:34","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T15:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=3468"},"modified":"2021-08-16T07:15:34","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T15:15:34","slug":"willow-wrangler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/willow-wrangler\/","title":{"rendered":"Willow Wrangler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Coral<\/a>I do not make a habit of wrestling with trees, but occasionally it becomes necessary.\u00a0 Last week I finished a several-round bout with the coral bark willow, Salix alba subspecies vitellina \u2018Britzensis\u2019, which grows smack in the middle of my front border.<\/p>\n

I want to emphasize that \u2018Britzensis\u2019 is a wonderful plant.\u00a0 A male member of the large, moisture-loving willow family, with elongated gray-green leaves, it can be grown as a multi-stemmed shrub, or a tree.\u00a0 I chose the tree route because I wanted space underneath for spring bulbs and other desirable plants.<\/p>\n

You might say that the coral bark willow is either a tree that wants to be a shrub, or a shrub making every effort to be a tree.<\/p>\n

When I installed my young coral bark willow about ten years ago, I was fully aware of its great claim to fame\u2014the reddish orange color of new growth shoots.\u00a0 I should have been fully aware of something else\u2014the plant grows as if it is on steroids.\u00a0 \u201cVigorous\u201d does not even begin to describe \u2018Britzensis\u2019, which can add six, eight or even ten feet of vertical growth in a single growing season.\u00a0 That means that if I left mine to its own devices, it might eventually reach a mature height of 80 feet tall.<\/p>\n

An optimist would say that the beauty of fresh, new red-orange branches on a tree of that size would be magnificent.\u00a0 The owner of a small garden might acknowledge that potential for magnificence, but would also commit to regular pruning.<\/p>\n

Life\u2019s complications don\u2019t always allow for regular pruning, and my life, since the last \u2018Britzensis\u2019 pruning four months ago, has been rife with complications.\u00a0 In fact, my to-do list contained the words \u201cprune willow\u201d for approximately two months before I actually got out the loppers last week.\u00a0 I would estimate that \u2018Britzensis\u2019 had put out about three feet of new vertical growth in the past four months.\u00a0 It looked as if one of its roots had inadvertently plugged into an electrical outlet.<\/p>\n

Late winter growth on coral bark willow tends to be redder than growth that occurs at other times of the year.\u00a0 The new growth that I lopped off was closer to yellow, but still quite beautiful, especially in early morning and the end of the day.\u00a0 I knew that it had to come off, but I assuaged whatever lingering guilt I might have felt with visions of harvesting the slim, flexible stems for holiday wreathes and swags.\u00a0 I may actually do that\u2014if life\u2019s complications don\u2019t interfere.<\/p>\n

As I wrestled with the willow I thought of the condemnation that usually accompanies the \u201ctopping\u201d of shade trees.\u00a0 \u201cTopping\u201d simply means lopping off a portion of the crown of a mature shade tree\u2014generally to make it fit a specific space.\u00a0 Contractors working for utility companies are sometimes guilty of this offense when they trim street trees to accommodate power lines. The practice may be necessary to ensure unobstructed power lines, but if done badly it can ultimately affect the health of the tree. \u00a0Homeowners are also sometimes guilty of \u201ctopping\u201d in the name of well disciplined landscaping and misguided ideas about conventional suburban good taste.\u00a0 Veteran southern garden writer Steve Bender calls it \u201ccrape murder\u201d when \u201ctopping\u201d is committed on crape myrtle trees.<\/p>\n

Given that my coral bark willow produces extremely rapid growth that is more shrub than tree-like, the trimming that I gave mine does not qualify as \u201ctopping\u201d.\u00a0 The landscape value of this willow variety derives almost entirely from the colorful new growth, which is stimulated by regular pruning.\u00a0 A kindly cut now means beautiful shoots later.<\/p>\n

Last week, it was a struggle to prune the whippy branches in the heat, which was about 90 degrees, and the humidity, which was at about 85 percent.\u00a0 Taking up my loppers, I felt like the great warrior Perseus, of Greek myth, standing in a sauna while confronting the snaky-haired Medusa.<\/p>\n

Like Perseus I prevailed.\u00a0 Unlike Perseus, I had to clean up my mess afterwards.\u00a0 The pruned branches are now resting behind the garage, neatly bundled and tied, awaiting the day when they will be used as either plant supports or holiday swags.<\/p>\n

They will not, however, be used as plant supports right away.\u00a0 I did that last year and all of my fresh willow plant supports rooted immediately and began new growth.\u00a0 Yanking them out later took some concerted effort and a bit of muscle.<\/p>\n

Coral bark willow, as I have come to realize, has vigor to spare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do not make a habit of wrestling with trees, but occasionally it becomes necessary.\u00a0 Last week I finished a several-round bout with the coral bark willow, Salix alba subspecies vitellina \u2018Britzensis\u2019, which grows smack in the middle of my front border. I want to emphasize that \u2018Britzensis\u2019 is a wonderful plant.\u00a0 A male member … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[2563,2437,2564,2562,81,2561,2452],"class_list":["post-3468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-copicing-trees","tag-coral-bark-willow","tag-ornamental-bark","tag-pollarding-trees","tag-pruning","tag-salix-alba-subspecies-vitellina-britzensis","tag-willow-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3470,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468\/revisions\/3470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}