See the size next to the barn on the right & note the vibrant golden colour!

This week was busy, but while at a meeting onsite at the Clarksburg Retreat, I did ask to spend some time walking the trails in search of heirloom willow.  The property was the Clendenan homestead which is an age-old name here. One tree by the barn stood out is on this old property saturated in local history.  There is a golden weeping willow that looks to be as old as the Victorian house- this type of willow is a common sight here in the Blue Mountains (formerly Collingwood Township).

Here I put my secateurs on the trunk to show the scale of the granddaddy tree.

I know weeping willow is not known as a basket willow because its draping branches do not pass dry-&-re-soak test for strength. They snap & do not bend like good basket willows.  Is it a different cell structure that also makes them droopy?  But I am tired of listening to conventionalism.  We have such wonderful golden weeping willows all over our landscape, so I would like to try to use them in some outside-the-traditional-basket thinking. Here is the result of using the weeping willow branches semi-green (I cut them and then let them mellow a few days while keeping the base branches in water)…