Catkins burst, whisper in your ear

See you on the dark side of St. Albans hill

Our area is incredible for many reasons, and being directly under the path of the solar eclipse is just one more. We have a clear westerly view for miles from our upper nursery and expect to see quite a show.

Happy Winter to you all! Did you even get one this year? This past weekend our area experienced an unprecedented stretch of nearly FIFTY DEGREE temperatures. To put it in perspective we should be hovering somewhere around zero! We’re on track for what may be our…

Earliest shipping season ever? Completely weather dependent!

One of the main reasons we don’t harvest during the Winter here is that the stools are buried under ice and snow. Digging through it with our hands is too tough, and shovels aren’t nimble enough to do the job. As always, we must prioritize the health of our willows over all else.

We’re on track to begin our Spring 2024 shipping season on the first week of March, possibly sooner. My nephew’s birthday is the 2nd and we have to take a couple days to travel… Where was I? Oh yes – while we may have our earliest shipping season start EVER, we’re highly subject to late-Winter blizzards and other delays. Barring those, with our expanded Fall shipping and increased workforce we expect the season to conclude quicker than ever. We see how warm everyone is!

As always, during this time of year your orders are my highest priority – sans nieces/nephews. While you were placing your order you may have wondered…

Where are all the rods and such?

We stimulate willow growth by coppicing. Deer stimulate willow growth by chewing on it. Boy howdy, the deer and moose are really trying to help us this year. Through deer, dogs, snow, grass, mowers – our fences have finally called it quits on us and animals have gotten in to nibble on things. I even wrote a song about it that I hope Weird Al covers.

It’s really great that we now get to help our local herbivores but it comes at the expense of rod tips. As you may know from A Willow’s Place, they prefer the newest, most tender growth. The rods will still work just fine for propagation but are pretty unappealing visually. We also have a lot of stock that’s simply taking a break for the season and need propagation.

On the other hand, the prices of many of our purpurea cuttings are reduced! We even have a new collection that’s the absolute lowest price we’ve ever offered. Also, for the first time we’re including gracilystyla ‘Mt Aso’ in a collection!

Every year our shipping season has gone more smoothly than the one before it, which is great because of the other…

Ongoing nursery projects

Building Wrap-up: If you’re following us on our (little used, I know, we’re working on it!) instagram page, you may have seen our huge steel building that’s going up. It’s quite the endeavor but like all such things once you get in to the groove it becomes easier. Big thank to Glen for helping us in the first stages and Lisa’s family for helping us during the crunch before the snow set in. It’s to become the new Vermont Willow Nursery HQ!

New Nursery: We have many different willows, but not many of all of them. This Spring we’ll be breaking ground on a third nursery with a heavy focus on natives. Our two existing nurseries are coppiced – for this third we’ll try our hand at pollards.

Potted Willows for Sale: Potted willows are something a lot of folks reach out for. We have a bunch of 5-6 year specimen trees that we’ll be potting this year. Maybe you’ll see them at the Gardner’s in Williston next year?

The elephence in the room: Can’t forget the fence either! As we work on our social medias we hope to record some willow structure and fence building. In the mean time, take a look at a few photos of this…

Stunning tunnel at a park in Cleveland

This purpurea tunnel was planted in 2021. The folks who installed it did the most amazing job and should be immensely proud of themselves. Behold!

Still with me? Guess we should get to…

Closing

How else to say it? We’ve been interviewed by Margaret Roach of the New York Times! Will I sound like a goofball? Probably, doesn’t matter! Will we have a framed article with our name in it in the New York frickin’ Times? YUP! So exciting!

Did I hear someone say end-of-season-cutting-clearance? More to come!

Aric