Interesting Report on Growing Poplar and Willow on Farms

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Nice thing about willow is that it is so easy to propagate from cuttings. :) I shoved some cuttings in a jar of water and they rooted quite nicely. Now if I had only got them planted before they went mouldy... :grit: Next time I will prepare the site first and then take the cuttings.

We have two rather ugly, rather stunted, young poplar trees as well as the huge one and a few seedlings. I am thinking that we should either pollard or coppice the young trees so we have an ongoing, reachable supply of bunny feed. Can't hurt to try!
 
Well, that's good to know. LOTS of willow up here!

I remember when I was a kid they had invasively taken root around the banks of our pond to the point that neither cattle nor human could get to the waters' edge. We were happy when beavers moved in and took care of them for us. :)
 
Coppicing and pollarding are not common on this side of the Atlantic, but I've long had an interest in traditional English agriculture and rural history. I saw lots of ancient pollarded trees in England and France on my trips there. I think pollards look very ugly, but the trees I have in mind for this project are already ugly and misshapen.
 
MaggieJ":1zkffmnd said:
Coppicing and pollarding are not common on this side of the Atlantic, but I've long had an interest in traditional English agriculture and rural history. I saw lots of ancient pollarded trees in England and France on my trips there. I think pollards look very ugly, but the trees I have in mind for this project are already ugly and misshapen.
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I think pollards are ugly too, but it's very common to do it to crepe myrtles down here. Blech. As far as I'm concerned, just keep the legs clean so they don't bush out, and they can get as tall as they want to.

Pollarding is an interesting concept for a crop tree, though, to keep the twigs and leaves within reach.
 
I really want to do this myself! I called the urban foresty office here and he leaned towards the poplar (we have a city lot and the plumbing infrastructure is OLD)- our back yard has an occasionally flooded valley, the trees would go just up-slope.

Looks like Ill have to wait until spring, but its on my to-do list!
 

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