Salix Caprea
They've become a liability. In just two years, they've grown ten-twelve feet. A whole plantation's worth, sucking the ground dry.
She planted bayonets – little six-inch plugs. Didn't know you could do that so easily. Just hammer a stick and the ground and watch a tree grow.
And grow they did. Almost palpably. You turned your back and they were up there, pushing, rising. Thin wands that bent in the wind.
She was going to crop them. They were as prolific as grasses. Willows for baskets. She'd sheaf them up and lay them in water to soften. They'd be bent into rounds, pods, coffins.
And when she died, they just kept growing, quick and on.
She meant to die. She knew.
And now they're ten-twelve feet and a liability. They bud in March, these down-plugs that feel so warm on your lip. Wands in a vase, wands bending in the wind.
We cut them down and they keep on coming.
22/2/2008
George Peterken
Woodland Conservation and Management, 1981
p 163
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