Gardening Journal: A Willow Weaving Experience

This November we were invited to The Sill to work once again with Sylvan Skills.

This was to build a large structure and available to those of us who had completed one of the beginners classes from earlier in the year.

The structure we built looks like a large empty dome. However, this time we were working with ‘green’ willow. This means it has not been dried out and unlike the other willow we have worked with, in the spring, this will start to grow and produce leaves. Ours will in the future look more like this.

A place for people to hide and watch the birds, squirrels and other woodland activities without disturbing the wildlife.

You can visit our hide any time at The Sill, National Landscape Discovery Centre. The location is to the left of the car park, through the gate into the small woods, near here.

Back inside in the warm with hot drinks and mince pies, we also learned how to make these decorations by folding the end of a willow stick into a star. We made quite a few of them for a Christmas event, but they could be used all year round as magic wands!

I’m sure we’ll be seeing some of these at The Comfrey Project this Christmas!