Coppice willow for free firewood forever! It’s crazy simple!
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- It is super simple to grow and tend a willow coppice for firewood to keep you warm all winter long. All you have to do is stick a branch in the ground and it will grow like a weed, particularly if your site is wet like ours. Coppicing then creates an endless amount of firewood with almost no effort from you. All you have to do is wait a few years, then coppice it again and enjoy your evening snuggled next to the fire!
Coppicing is the act of cutting a tree to the ground. It rejuvenates the tree and creates more free firewood forever!
We are trying to be as self-sufficient and off grid as possible on our smallholding, our English homestead, with a little help from Hazel, our pup.
Dog: "Less talky, more scratchy."
She would love that!
I had to watch this 3x.
The first two I could only pay attention to the dog, then I heard what you were saying.
Great video!
Yes, she can be a bit distracting!
The best video on coppicing I have seen on you tube. And in less than 7 minutes! Ignore your willow firewood critics. If you're starting with a grass field, it's one of the quickest ways to get usable firewood. Willow firewood is better than no firewood.
That is very nice of you to say so. I had a friend who simply said, 'All wood burns!' I think he had a point.
This is exactly my situation - a big empty field, on a slope in France. Up until now very wet autumns and winters, but hot, dry summers - not sure how willow will go but worth a try. I just need a bit more info on best types for biomass (apparently some grow thicker rather than taller?)
@@emmaslowyou could try haselnut as well if you are going for biomass haselnut and willow are voth easy to plant and harvest. We are planning strips of willow and haselnut and plan to shred them for wood mulch
@@emmaslowhere in NZ we have planted swamp gum. It grows fast and burns well. It is also coppicing. Plant 40 and cut down the 1st few at 8yrs. You won’t keep up with the timber it’ll grow.
We planted a willow coppice on our smallholding 20 years ago and it's been very worthwhile. We planted what was called biomass willow which grows tall and straight. It was supposed to be a 5 year rotation but we found it takes a little longer to get good sized logs. We also found that they produce early pollen and nectar for our bees. It's also popular with small birds like willow warblers. A few years ago when there was a drought and the grass was scorched we cut some of the tops down to feed the cattle.
Hi Steve, do you know which species of willow you planted? I am trying to source willow for biomass in France, and have been asked to suggest some species that are what I'm looking for. Searching online hasn't thrown up much yet ;) Thanks
Sorry Emma, I don't remember. It was over 20 years ago. We bought it from a company which used to advertise in the Country Smallholder Magazine. They offered both Biomass Willow and Biomass Poplar. I had a look myself just now but couldn't find it. It was sold as a bunch of foot long sticks, unrooted. You just pushed them into the ground as far as you could. The first lot threw up just a single tall trunk but after cutting the first crop they second lot had multiple stems. We planted 100 the first year but the second year we just cut sticks from the original trees and planted those. After 3 years you have 300 trees. They root very easily and if you leave any logs lying on the ground they'll root as well and send up more shoots. I should say they look great when they've grown 20 feet high and the wind sways them about.
That sounds really good. I can't wait for ours to be ready!
Alder is also a good option for fuel biomass in damp conditions as it is more dense than willow and burns hotter, alder charcoal was used to make gunpowder (hence the town named Aldershot). I believe alder is also durable so maybe good for fencing etc., not forgetting that willow can provide an interesting sideline for basket making. I harvest a bit of willow occasionally in the spring (if I can get hold of a tree in a customer’s garden for the bark (medicinal) and thumb sized bits for clothes pegs as I enjoy carving them.
To maximise the chances for that large tree, I'd recommend taking it down in stages. The heavy top won't be so heavy if you take a few of the branches off of it. Then give it a season to recover. After that, you can take off a few more branches and give it another summer to recover. When cutting large limbs or trunks, it's always a good idea to paint the cut with Pine Tar (Stockholm Tar) because it has natural anti-bacterial/microbial action in it. Every homestead should have a quart of Pine Tar on hand to help keep wood tool handles going strong, and for making salves.
Willow makes good firewood. It grows quickly, and it dries really quickly. we went through one winter burning windfall branches cut and stacked in the summer under cover and perfectly dry by the winter.
Sounds really good. Can't wait for ours to get big enough!
Its the most shitty firewood on this planet!🤦♂️ it stinks, it s gone before you have turned your back on the stove and it produces tons of fine dust and slowly consumes your exhaust and that’s when you are that lucky you won’t have a chimney fire before….. stupid stupid, really really stupid, it makes no sense at all🤦♂️ in holland, the insurance company even forbids you to put this in your stove. If you do, anything happens and they get to know about it, you won’t get paid a penny.
Hail the algorithm for bringing me here, and hail to you, sir, for your ecological work and sharing of your knowledge!
Thank you, glad you are enjoying the videos!
I didn't know you could just plant a willow branch, but now that you mention it, I have heard before that some kind of willow extract is used as a rooting hormone. I looked it up, and it's called willow water. That makes sense, if the tree already has something that behaves like rooting hormone, then of course, you can just root branches from that particular tree too.
Yes, it has been used for a long time for that purpose. Amazing tree!
I remember a story where someone used willow logs as fence posts, and 30 years later, the barb wire fencing was 30 feet in the air. Every willow log fence post grew into a tree! It’s a marvelous story that stuck in my mind. I suspect I learned it when I studied practical herbalism, and the teacher told it to animate the regenerative powers of willow.
🙏 bless
It's also how multiple apple trees of the same variety can exist as each apple grown from seed will be unique
By taking a cutting and planting it with rooting hormone, you'll get a clone with the exact same type of apples
Nice vid on coppicing. How nice you can actually squat and walk through your field without getting ticks all over you. Where we live in the US, we have tiny ticks that carry many debilitating diseases and are rampant everywhere, especially in tall grass & brush. England now is what it was like in the Northeast here before the 1980's.
That sounds really bad. I had no idea.
@@theviewfromtheclouds When I was a kid I used to run through the long grass, roll down hills, climb trees...it was great fun and I had never even heard of ticks....by the time I turned 16 ticks were EVERYWHERE from the first warm days of spring until freezing temps in the autumn. My children have a completely different relationship to nature due to us all getting Lyme's disease. It's an epidemic that is not getting the attention it should. People with long-term tick borne diseases aren't getting the care we should either--the CDC doesn't even recognize chronic Lyme's.
@@ravenwolf7128The CDC doesn't care about the Lyme disease because it was grown in some government labs and released out where it has been infecting people for years. You can look it up, it's not a made up conspiracy theory, that shit is real. There's an island close to New York where they have been doing all kinds of horrible experiments for decades. There's a good RUclips channel that covered it really well but I can't remember the name.
Sir, you have spoiled your dog with too many pets. Now he feels entitled to ALL the pets.
It is not about the beautifull, friendly lab, it is about the trees
Yes, we do spoil her, but why not? Also, she has really soft ears and is nice to snuggle!
I agree, I love my baby also❤
It would be difficult not to spoil her!
I wouldn’t be able to resist such a lovey person! I kept giggling every time she nudged in for affection.
Over here in the Netherlands you can see pollarded willows (often Salix alba) a lot, and they used to be everywhere, to provide wood for the fire, tools, manufacturing, charcoal, and shoots for basket weaving among many things. They are planted in rows along canals, are cut back at least every 3-5 years, and it is fairly normal here to see pollarded willows that are 40-50 cm in diameter, often even quite a lot bigger. I think people over here chose and still choose pollarding over coppicing because you leave much more of the tree alive, thus providing a bigger buffer for the trees to regenerate from; it's also easier to cut branches off higher up than at ground level; and of course the wildlife that might eat it. Every 3 years, one pollarded willow can provide many branches as thick as a wrist, and if they don't get cut back within about 5 years the branches will actually become so thick that the weight can split the tree into parts. Very productive way of growing wood.
That is very interesting. Many of the old pollards here are ash instead of willow. Sadly, many of them are dying from ash dieback disease.
We used to do the same thing with chestnut, an endless supply of stakes and fencing materials. I have to say though willow is so easy to grow,, many years ago I grew a willow log pile into trees, we had some logs cut they got left behind just laying on the ground, a few years later they sprouted,
Yes, we have experienced something similar. Willow is an interesting tree to grow!
@@theviewfromtheclouds Easy to grow and a million uses.
Thanks for explaining the rationale for cutting so close to the ground. I have planted 1/4ac up a couple of years back for coppice on septic tank soakway but was just going to snip 'reasonably close'. I have on of the more vigorous trees blow over this year so the true coppice will probably be more appropriate.
Glad you found it useful. It really is amazing how it works!
If you have pipe below they may block from roots?
@normanpouch I got design From feidhlim Harty wetland designs. Used some membrane over a spacer to reduce that problem. Fingers crossed stays OK!
Carful those willow roots don’t bust up or block you septic
Here in Wisconsin in the United States we have a very large deer population. The deer fence would be a game changer.
Your land looks great, wonderful work you have done. Thanks for the video.
Yes, I think we must have similar areas. The deer pressure here would stop us too. The deer fence has been incredibly helpful.
I've loved willow since learning more about it. Cuttings root just in the presence of water, you get endless firewood from it if you coppice, it's great for restoring/strengthening riverbanks and making any sort of fencing/basket etc, and it's bark was used as a painkiller - such an amazing tree!
P.S. - love the background music you have in this video - can I ask where it's from?
I get my music from Artlist. From memory, it is about 4 different tracks on that video.
coppicing willow to get lots of small diameter unbranched branches is a known thing, for then building fences and other structures. And your video showcased this result spectacularly. Unfortunately it didn't show examples of how coppicing would generate usable firewood (at least 5-6 inches diameter) Was there material edited out that showed mature, coppiced trees ready for chopping and drying?
Ah this was what brought me to this video too, and I'm left wondering the same?
Hi, all of our trees are still young and most of them were cut down to provide material for our new coppice area. Now that they have been cut, they are growing at quite a clip and should be ready in 5-7 years. No firewood just yet, sadly!
Just fantastic to come across your channel and your content. We're on a similar journey. Wishing you all the best on yours.
Thank you! I hope your project is fun and successful!
Great video. I have young alder trees that I want to coppice. Thanks for the lesson!
You are very welcome - happy that we are being helpful!
Thank you for sharing your experiences ❤❤❤
You are very welcome, thanks for watching!
Wow, this is great information and a very high production quality video! How do you only have 200 subscribers?
That is very nice of you to say so. I really appreciate it!
I burn willow from time to time but I find it has relatively poor heating compared to hazel after it has been dried for firewood. This can be improved by increasing the draft slightly which improves its combustion without excessive consumption.
Pauwlonia is a good alternative.
I was very excited when I heard about paulownia. We bought two of them and I was really looking forward to them rocketing into the sky. But, they died.
I have a stand of aspen trees that clone themselves by the roots and keep giving firewood forever. Also staghorn sumac. Everyone thinks im insane for using staghorn sumac for firewood, but it dries easily and burns hot. I used it in a maple syrup boiler. I tapped 75 trees one year and ran the boiler off of nothing but staghorn sumac and aspen.
Wow, I would love to be able to make maple syrup! I love the stuff and I have tried to grow sugar maples here, but they don't seem to like our climate. In regards to sumac, I totally agree, there really is no such thing as bad firewood!
@@theviewfromtheclouds what's the climate? Where are you?
We live in northern England now. I grew up in America and I still miss the fall colours I saw as a kid. Maples will grow here but apparently don't make enough sap for syrup. I planted two sugar maples years ago, but they did not thrive. Might try again....
Willow also makes excellent tool handles that do not need treating, when I was a kid back in the 60s they were used to make cricket bats, I don't know if that is still the case. It is a very useful flexible hardwood, and commands a premium price from weavers.
I believe it is white willow that is used for cricket bats even today. Not tried to grow it yet, but it is a fantastic looking tree.
their a strange tree, I remember a few years back a huge one fell over on the heath near where I live in London, and over the next few years a thousand more started growing straight out of the dead tree. The park keepers obviously new what they were doing when they left it down, sadly it is rather to big for your typical London garden, unless your happy with one tree and that's it. @@theviewfromtheclouds
You mention harvesting these willows for burning: at what age do u usually do that, pls?
We are hoping to cut on a 5-7 year rotation. So, we have a few years to wait!
Dog: You talking to me?
Well I guess he must be talking to me, because there is nobody else here.
Good dog - human relationship!
Thank you! She is lovely.
Yes, thanks for that. I was considering establishing low pollards, about a 0.8-1 M to make harvesting easier (no bending down). I hadn't considered the wind throw problem though. The other issue is, how to ensure the initial cutting only sprouts at the top. Maybe spiral stem guards? I guess a bit of experimentation will be required. I've only managed as coppice previously.
HI, thanks for the video. We're in Central France, and have created our own source of firewood which involves natural wasteage and coppicing. After sevearal attempts and creating an area of trees for coppicing, I had some very good advice from a local person. Essentially you leave the land in question to go wild, and after a few years is forms a copse and then goes to woodland. Incredibly enough this works, and the young woodland that we have that was 'created' by using this method is at least as good as that which we planted and managed. Not sure that this would work everywhere, our growing season is a good and powerful one. But thought I'd mention our experience in case it's of interest. Take care
That sounds like a really good idea. The trees that grow naturally will be suitable for your area. I am hoping that our natural regen area does the same. No trees have showed up so far - likely because the grass is really thick apart from where I have mowed it. Fingers crossed for next spring!
Hi, yes, here we're quite lucky as a range of trees seem to do well, hornbeam, oak, willow, ash. And, after about 15 years of watching what happens, I also think that if a tree has self seeded it seems somehow stronger. And we now leave them to sort themselves out rather than trying to decide how to thin them out.
But we've also found that introduced trees do well. Here wild cherry and sweet chestnut have taken well, despite the fat that there weren't many of them. I collect the wild cherry stones and just throw them in the field, it works like magic.
Have you thought of collecting loads of acorns, maple keys, cherry stones etc and just casting them on the land to see what happens? Just a thought. Take care @@theviewfromtheclouds
Pollarding is nice for smaller diameter wood.
If I pollard my mulberry trees every year, I get nice bendy branches for hoops.
At two years they are post sized.
That is impressive!
That dog!
Yes.... she is quite a character!
I use fast growing Poplar, they produce more wood than Willow, but I do use willow too.
I find willow still ok to burn, but poplar does not cut it.
We have tried a variety of poplars here, but we have not had much success apart from with aspen. They grow very well on our land and we have planted a large number of them to add to the couple of large ones we already have. Beautiful trees, aspen!
Thiago Concept is very old. I dont now in englisch But in german ist is called „Niederwald“ u can use all Trees that grow back from the root. I use mulbeery, castanea and robinia because it is to dry for willows where i life .
Whatever you do, don't let the Callery Pears get loose on the countryside.
Thanks for the tip - I have not heard of that particular tree.
That is neat about the Jays planting oaks. I am overgrown with coconut palms from all of these darn African Swallows.
How interesting, I had no idea that would happen!
African or European?
3:01🤗
Here we use Salix viminalis planted in rows and by machine they are cut yearly when the branch is thick as the pellets. It has 4,900 kca/kg.
There are even experiments with mechanized coppiced Black Locust. It seems that it is even more vigorous and less susceptible to disease.
I would really like to try black locust, but it does not like wet soil, which is what we have.
There is a huge amount of heat in a kg - do you dry it yourselves?
Please can you tell me what time of year is best to coppice the willows? And if i want to plant the cuttings do i do it then also?
Hi, the best time to coppice is in the late winter or very early spring before the willow starts to grow. Once you coppice the trees, plant the cuttings within a week or two, making sure they don't dry out. You can store them in water to help them stay hydrated. I hope that helps.
@@theviewfromtheclouds Thank you, yes it does! I'll have to be patient now!
I do like Elder ina coppice.
I am considering planting a willow hedge (20m), but the septic tank lies about 1 meter from where part of the hedge is. Will the roots damage the pipe? I guess I can dig down a barrier but how deep does the root system go?
Oh, and my dog loves your dog!
Thanks for that! Hazel is really lovely. I think 1m is too close to a septic tank, even with a barrier. If a root gets through it could get cause very expensive damage to your tank. Maybe think about a species that does not like damp growinf conditions. That way it will not be tempted to grow into your tank or drain field.
Really liked the video, lots of good information. Was the music necessary? Really?
Definitely necessary! Music makes everything better! Though, I might lower the volume on the next video.... The challenge is to get the balance right for different devices. On TVs it can be too loud while on headphones, it can be too quiet. Glad you like the info though!
@@theviewfromtheclouds I use headphones. Haven't watched tv in over two years. It's just that I started listening to the music and had to rewind to get the voice back.
What kind of stove do you use the willow wood for firewood in?
Our current stove is an Arada 25 HE ecoboiler. It has a water jacket that runs the central heating. But, we have had good success with a variety of stoves. Basically, buy the best one you can afford, it really makes a difference regarding efficiency and its ability to keep the glass clear. Having said that, even a cheap stove is way more efficient than an open fire. Hope that helps.
In some areas you have acres of this to be harvested with a corn combiner to be used for high combustion value
Hi, yes they do that on some farms near us. Seems to be a great idea!
If your ground is wet plant Ash instead. Itcoppices just as fast and is premium for firewood.
We really wanted to grow lots of ash. Sadly, ash dieback disease is a problem here. We have a number of large old ash trees that are ill with it. So, planting more is not really an option at the moment.
id love to see pollarding happening more. still get shade and lots of fire wood.
Yes, it is a great technique. It does mean you need a ladder to cut it, though. That is a bit beyond my chainsaw skill level!
I thought a Coppice was for creating straight withys for making things like baskets, wattle fencing, poles etc. Burning? "Willow burns ok. Its a good shoulder season wood to use when you need to get the stove warm and take the chill out of the air, but I wouldn't want to use it to heat my house in January."
How are those twigs considered firewood?🤔🤔🤔
They are a bit young yet. In five years or so, they should have fattened up nicely!
@@theviewfromtheclouds Thank you, I was wondering if they were harvested for a grill or for kindling.
Its just not a particularly good firewood.
Hi, thanks for the comment. This is a point that is frequently made. I think I will address it directly in an upcoming video.
@@theviewfromtheclouds
Is it specifically due to ground drainage?
Surely the odd Hazel between willows would help a little with that?
There are different kind of willow species. One is more suited than others. Also elder, maple, sweet chestnut, ash and hazel can be coppiced and they are all better firewood. But, as someone else said here in the comments, willow grows fast but dries fast as well and it burns fast, so it can be useful to start fires. The young shoots and leaves are also good mulch and good for the compost heap. Willow wood has no tannine at all, so it breaks down easily and is a good fertilizer. Easy to shred and spread out in the fall over bare vegetable beds until the season begins again in spring. I'm trying to find a small, cheap shredder and experiment with the mulch. Tannine rich mulch can be used for pathways and suppresses weed growth.
but willow is not the best firewood. I would think birch to be the better choice. I thrives under pretty much the same conditions. You might not be able to coppice it, but even young trees makes a million seeds and you can basically thin the trees and have trees in many stages of growth. Also i think birch handles weeds and grass a lot better. Birch is also pretty great firewood and easy to split
and the bark is a great firestarter
2:16
Here's an interesting situation
Yes, I wonder how it will fare in the coming years.
Did you say Codpieceing? It may be worth it, unless you are the Cod. Oh, coppicing - the grouping of trees... Oh! The trees probably prefer some company.
Coppicing has been practiced since 4500 BC.
It was a fantastic development in wood production. I had no idea it went back that far!
Willow sadly has a very low heating value.
Pauwlonia is a good alternative, also fast growing.
I'm curious about your accent. Often you sound Australian except that you tend to use the rhotic R.. Perhaps more West Country than Northern...
Of course it could be that I've just become so use to hearing an English accent I'm losing the ability to distinguish the two.
Second that!
I'm guessing a hint of Scottish in there.
Ah, my accent. I’m actually American, although I’m rather Anglicised after living here for nearly 30 years. A hint of Scottish?... Possibly, we lived there for a bit. Never been to Australia but wouldn’t mind!
@@theviewfromtheclouds Thanks for replying. I would never have picked American!
Sure but then you're stuck burning willow. I guess it's something though.
Firewood? Isn't burning wood rather bad for the air environment?.
It can be. It depends on what you are burning and where. Burning wet wood in the city would be terrible. Dry wood in an efficient stove is another matter entirely - especially in a rural area.
All the carbon in a piece of wood came from - guess where? Clue: not the ground. Planting as you burn (and of course coppicing as shown) is the key to sustainability. The CO2 released from wood burning is not 'stuck' in the atmosphere. There is a cycle. Wood burning merely takes advantage of that cycle. Danger to the atmosphere only arises when there is no replanting.
Adding on to the comments, you can also have (some) carbon sequestering in the root systems as well, so this is a net carbon neutral method at worst, with some slight carbon reduction at best. Of course, once the tree dies, the root system would start to decay but some of that would go back to the soil anyways. So I would stick with considering this net neutral.
Plus with some really high efficiency stoves, you can get complete combustion that means you don't have soot or smoke released to the air, and it's just water vapour and CO2. So air quality isn't a concern then.
Just like burning coal or diesel, its only bad for the "air environment" if you shoot the sooty smoke straight into the air
^5
Thank you!
Willow is an easy but rubbish fire wood. Think longer term with better, energy dense species. The management of pollard and coppice demands more of you in terms of sheer work and time than better trees.
I have some Scouler Willow growing wild in New England. Grows so fast! Using a small chipper/mulcher I made a bag of mulch from the branches and the bag of mulch heated up to about 120F over night! Microbiology loves it!
I have not heard of that type of willow. I suppose each area has it own species. It is amazing how much heat microbes can make!
Here (Nl,BE) you see a lot of pollarded willows between pastures, specially old ones that haven't been rectified during the fifties and sixties reorganizations. Mostly the reason for pollarding(cutting at least a good meter above ground). I was always told that is because it provides more shade for cattle. Here they say willow needs coppicing/pollarding every few years, because multi year shoots will become so heavy that a storm might tear one off, damaging the trunk. The relative softness of the wood might depend on climate though, in dryer climate the growing might stop (more) during the dry period in summer. Classically willow wood (and many other forms of hack wood) was used for kitchen stoves. rather than house heating. Probably because when cooking, in the kitchen there were usually people to add to it regularly in small bits, while in the main room you wanted thicker logs that burned for a while.
I've planted 400 willow earlier in the spring. Some are tall, some quite small, but my small flock of geese love them and eat the young growth!
Oh no! Sorry about that.
Willow seems like a very crappy fire wood, very wet liquid-filled wood, light an fluffy when dry, rots easily
You left out one other benefit. Hands down it's the best tree for fulfilling your childhood dreams of playing Spiderman or Tarzan, depending on which comic I was reading at the time. My only problem was Thanos, (AKA: My Grandma),. She wasn't nearly as enthusiastic at my vine swinging escapades and the moment she heard Tarzan calls from the front yard, she made a b-line straight to me. She picked up a fresh broken limb and my spidey-sense overloaded. Once she convinced me she wasn't going to whip me like a dog, she took me to the back corner and stuck it into the ground. Then told me once it's big enough you can swing 24/7. I told her that wasn't fair and it would take a whole life time. Had I held off puberty I could have been swinging in about 6 years. It's ridiculous how quickly they can grow back.
You can push the cut willow straight into the ground (as long as the soil is not too dry).
No need to plant purchased trees - free trees forever!
It really is an amazing tree. One of my favourites!
Love this kind of content. Thank you! Subscribed :)
Thank you - I am glad you like it!
The problem with willow is it burns quickly although it dries fast. Have you ever kept a record of your hours working for an amount of firewood? Do you use any mechanisation other than a chainsaw? Finally, I live in a similar environment and can get various types of willow cuttings but the most common type is Sally (Sallow/Goatwillow). Is it better or worse?
Some years ago I cut a walnut tree in winter right to the ground. Its diameter, I guess, was about 15cm. The following season about 6 shoots reached almost 3m, which I really didn't expect. Willow is unfortunately in weight more water than wood. Walnuts are easy to grow by pushing fresh nuts into the ground. Soon the birds and squirrels will plant them everywhere once your trees are producing in the same way of your little oak tree.
Walnut trees put alliopathic poisons into the ground preventing other tress from growing
@@TheNightwalker247 Honestly I don't observe that. I have all kinds of trees growing nearby without problem.
@@andrep5899 strange maybe a different variety.... Our big walnut tree only allowed gras
Hi, thanks for the information. We do have a walnut tree, but it is not thriving. I think our soil is just too wet for it. Glad yours is doing so well!
"And this is also one season's growth..."
*me thinking for several seconds you were talking about the big white dog* 😂
Your co-star is lovely... and the video is also very interesting. Thanks!
That made me laugh! She is about 10 seasons growth I think...
well i live in France now and 90% of the local woodlands where I am are coppiced chestnut fire wood is the cheapest way to heat in winter and here at least it is sustainable
poor dog he gets no attention
Nooice! 😎 STOC
Hi,
Would you mind sharing what kind (species) of willow you are growing? If more than one, which you recommend?
Thanks 😊
Hi, sure. I bought Q83 and DRH Brown from this store: mammothwillow.com/store/ However, the variety that has done the best for us was one found in a hedgerow years ago. Hope they work for you!
You didn't show any firewood sized logs, just weedy twigs growing!
Sorry about that - it will take them a few years to get that big. But, I will keep making videos on their progress!
Wonderful video. Great to see the results of your coppicing experiments. Have you any Eucalyptus planted?
Hi, we did plant several types of eucalyptus, but they don't seem to like our weather. None of them survived the winter. Pity, I had high hopes for them.
@@theviewfromtheclouds thanks for the info. I hope to plant a half acre to supply my stove at some time in the next year or so. I'll be examining the soil and water table to choose the right mix of trees.
❤
Thank you!
Didn’t know that Jays planted acorns - always thought it was squirrels 🐿️ Agree with coppicing willow - did a whole line of willow tree back in 2018 and haven’t had a shortage of firewood since 🙂 Only downside is it takes a while to dry out and isn’t very dense so get through much more of it plus generates more ash - but it’s free fuel 👍
Glad you had success with it!
Enjoyed this video
Thank you
You're welcome!
I wish we have willows in tropics for living huts
I wish we could grow big diameter bamboo in Ireland, swings and roundabouts.
@@jamesdevlin6373 the grass is greener on the other side I guess 😅