Miyabeana originates from Hokkaido, Japan, and was offered to the Ministry of Natural Resources in Ontario for biomass experiments (Checklist for Cultivars of Salix L.). It eventually found it’s way to the wonderful folks over at Cornell University, who have done extensive studies on it. The fact sheet for Sx61 is currently unavailable, but can be found here: https://willow.cals.cornell.edu/extension/#factsheets

Our miyabeana cultivars are extremely vigorous! In 2020, our friend Aresh Javadi and his understudy Minerva came and coppiced our entire patch of miyabeana. Between Spring and Fall, they all grew rods over six feet long. No, that is NOT a typo! Miyabeana is a proven winner and would work well as a privacy screen, wind/snowbreak, creating living and dried structures, early pollinator assistance…you get the idea. All of this vigor and it tops out at relatively small size. This willow keeps a nice, lively green-yellow throughout the year and taper to red at the tips.

Sx67 is almost entirely identical to Sx61 and 64, the differences being quite literally microscopic.

*anecdotally, we have sent miyabeana and it’s variations all over the country, and have not had reports of issues planting in hardiness zones above 6

The post miyabeana ‘Sx67’ first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

Miyabeana originates from Hokkaido, Japan, and was offered to the Ministry of Natural Resources in Ontario for biomass experiments (Checklist for Cultivars of Salix L.). It eventually found it’s way to the wonderful folks over at Cornell University, who have done extensive studies on it. The fact sheet for Sx61 is currently unavailable, but can be found here: https://willow.cals.cornell.edu/extension/#factsheets

Our miyabeana cultivars are extremely vigorous! In 2020, our friend Aresh Javadi and his understudy Minerva came and coppiced our entire patch of miyabeana. Between Spring and Fall, they all grew rods over six feet long. No, that is NOT a typo! Miyabeana is a proven winner and would work well as a privacy screen, wind/snowbreak, creating living and dried structures, early pollinator assistance…you get the idea. All of this vigor and it tops out at relatively small size. This willow keeps a nice, lively green-yellow throughout the year and taper to red at the tips.

Sx61 has also been featured in Beyond the Pellet, as a supplement to rabbit feed.

*anecdotally, we have sent miyabeana and it’s variations all over the country, and have not had reports of issues planting in hardiness zones above 6

The post miyabeana ‘Sx61’ first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

This would serve well anyone looking to create a native plant garden, or like the native Americans for weaving and fletchery. We’re still exploring willow’s use as livestock fodder, but the USDA gives it a “high palatability rating”.

The USDA has an amazing and thorough write-up on bebbiana here.

Please note: Our bebbiana seem to have issues rooting, and have had others reach out similarly stumped. If you’re still interested please know that I cannot guarantee success, thus this will not be protected by our willlowy warranty. Still undaunted? You rock, please let me know how you fare via email!

2025 Update: Has a corner turned? I spoke with a remediation specialist who uses lots of bebbiana to great success. What a mystery! Keep the updates coming, intrepid willowers, and receive love!

The post bebbiana first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

It’s a cross between two wild collected clones of this native plant and produced at the University of Toronto. The result is astonishing! This is the most vigorous S. eriocephala

I have ever seen, growing twice the height of all other selections of this species in one year! I believe that is due to hybrid vigour (heterosis); a phenomenon in some plants where crossing two different clones/species of plants produces much more vigorous offspring! It is an attractive shrub with larger leaves than the species and long, straight stems that are covered with female catkins in April-May. It is highly insect and disease resistant and forms a shrub that can grow 15-20ft tall, but better if coppiced every 2-3 years to get more young flowering stems. Adaptable to a wide range of soil and moisture conditions. Like all willows, it prefers full sun!

Check out the fact sheet from Cornell University here!

The post eriocephala S25 ‘Vigorella’ first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

The post cordata first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

The post ‘Aquatica Gigantea Korso’ first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

The post schwerinii first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

eriocephala

pollinators, fodder, streambank restoration

babylonica f. unbraculifera ‘Navajo’

fodder

leucopithecia ‘Winter Glory’

pollinators, large weaving

purpurea ‘Holland’

pollinators, streambank restoration

‘Aquatica Gigantea Korso’

pollinators, fodder, streambank restoration, biomass, large weaving

purpurea ‘Irette’

pollinator assistance, streambank restoration, weaving

The post Willows for Farms Collection first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

Click here to see what the USDA has to say about eriocephala.

The post eriocephala first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.

The paths that willow travel are rarely documented, so this story is very much a treat! Thank you, Sports Illustrated 1970! The full article can be found in that link. Below is a truncated version pertaining only to the willow:

A modern Johnny Appleseed
To repay his debt to the land, a wealthy ex-governor of New Mexico makes things grow, including swamps, game—and a very special tree

Virginia Craft

In cowboy boots, string tie and ten-gallon Stetson he appeared oddly out of place at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. And from the way he hovered over the six big cardboard boxes that accompanied him, protecting them from customary airport abuse, it was obvious he was guarding some very special cargo. It was special; Tom Bolack, oilman, rancher and former governor of New Mexico, had traveled halfway across the country to plant the first Navajo willow trees in the state of New York.

Tom Bolack has been planting Navajo willows in New Mexico—and lately, in other parts of the U.S.—for almost 20 years. Like those he was to plant in Carmel, N.Y., all the Navajo willows now growing in the U.S. stem from a single giant tree. It was brought from China by a returning missionary almost 100 years ago and planted on the Navajo Indian Reservation near Bolack’s home city of Farmington, N. Mex.

In 1957, when Bolack bought the initial 350 acres of what is now his 3,000-acre B-Square Ranch adjoining Farmington, his first act was to establish a full-scale nursery and stock it with shoots from the original tree. In the 13 years since, the B-Square has produced almost a million Navajo willows, and Bolack has given away more than half that number to schools, churches, municipalities, colleges and hospitals. In a single year, in New Mexico alone, B-Square has donated some 50,000 trees worth more than $200,000 as part of its private campaign to “keep New Mexico green.”

The trees now grow as far south as Vero Beach, Fla. and as far north as North Dakota. In most places the willows have been used to reforest barren lands, but last year the trees were planted to landscape the outside of Dodger Stadium at Chavez Ravine.

The planting in New York was for still another reason. The trees were a memorial to a young teacher, Diane Gorman, who died last spring after an automobile accident while en route to the Kent Elementary School in Carmel, N.Y. When Bolack was asked if he would provide a memorial tree for each of the children in her third-grade class, he not only agreed but insisted on bringing them himself. At the school he supervised the planting and then led the dedication to the young teacher he had not known.

The post babylonica f. umbraculifera ‘Navajo’ first appeared on Vermont Willow Nursery.