I am a woodchip convert for I have discovered that a mulch of chipped willow, which contains salicylic acid, boosts resistance against scab in apple trees.

The trees are now circled by woodchips that will also act as a mulch supressing weeds and retaining moisture in dry periods. This is such an obvious action you might wonder why I have never done it before, and quite frankly, so do I. My excuse has always been that woodchips steal nitrogen from the soil as they rot down. Now there is some truth in this but when spread on the surface, the effect is minimal and is far outweighed by good that they do and as they rot down they release nutrients acting as a slow release fertiliser.

My conversion was complete when my friend, Paul leant me his woodchipper which neatly coincided with a visit from my son, Greg and his wife. Naturally, I lost no time in dragooning Greg and Ali into cutting and chipping the willow hut which has been left to its own devices for far too long and had grown so substantial that I could no longer tie in bent rods and make a roof. It was time for some hefty renovation to a feature that has given many hours of pleasure over the years. It is the place to sit on a hot summer’s day, watch the dragonflies patrol and hear the faint clash of wings as two males fight for possession of the pond.

I planted the willow in March 2014 having driven down to Herefordshire where a willow harvester called Woz loaded my little car with nine foot long willow rods before stuffing in armfuls of thin wands of a variety called ‘Dark Dicks’ which was so pliable that I could use it like string to tie everything together. It was easy to push the willow rods into the soft earth around the pond at ten inch intervals and then bind them together by weaving two strands of willow in and out at waist height. That done, I then bent the rods over and tied them in to form a roof. I pushed in smaller rods at 45% so that the hut would be entirely clothed in leaves.

Of all the various projects that I have undertaken over the years the willow hut was certainly the most satisfying. Willow that has been cut in late winter or very early spring only needs to be sunk into the ground for ten or so inches and it will root and within weeks send out green leaves in front of your astonished eyes. The wonderful thing about this project was the speed with which it went up for willow can be bent and shaped into tunnels and hedges, pergolas and huts in hours rather than days.

Over the years I have pruned out excess rods and tied in many more but every year the original rods have grown stronger and thicker until they tower upwards too high for me to reach and tie in. So time to coppice, cutting back the willow almost to the ground which sounds brutal but with such well established roots it will shoot up come the spring.