It’s March 2. I’ve just come in to my office, camera in hand, from photographing a variety of willows out there in our snow-covered garden. Later today I’ll go back into the garden with a ladder and Felco #2 pruning shears in hand to prune back last year’s growth on those willows I’ve been pollarding now for several years.
I first learned about pollarding trees from my wife Mary. We were visiting her family on their diversified farm in Hidcote Boyce, just outside Chipping Campden in the North Cotswold Hills of Gloucestershire. We were walking in a wet area in a low fold in the land– much like a book fully open on its spine - between two gently sloping sheep pastures. Decades ago Mary’s father, or perhaps a previous farmer, had planted seven willow trees, each perhaps 30’ from the next along the length of that always-moist low fold in the land. Each winter Mary’s father Albert, or her brother Simon, would pollard one of the willows. That is, with a saw, they cut back the seven-year-old branches to the “quick” – to the trunk. The result was a 8’-10’ high trunk with many, many nubs of branches that had been cut away.
A few of the cut branches would be stout enough to be used to insert into hedges to keep the sheep in. Mary’s mother Phyllis might use the smaller branches later that Spring to support pea or clematis vines.
The following March, Simon or Albert would pollard the next willow in the row of seven and so on, always cutting seven year old wood. The eighth year would see them back at the first tree in the row. These willows and their management are a superb example of an original renewable resource.
The Gloomy Day by Pieter Bruegel The Elder c. 1565 courtesy Kunst Historiches Museum.
Detail: The Gloomy Day by Pieter Bruegel The Elder c. 1565 courtesy Kunst Historiches Museum.
In 1565 the Netherlandish artist Pieter Bruegel The Elder painted a man cutting the stems of a pollarded willow in late winter in his work titled The Gloomy Day. If you look closely, in the bottom right of the painting (see detail of painting above) you'll find a man in a black cap, blue jacket and red pants with a pruning knife in his hand. He is about to do what I did a few days ago when I pruned last season's shoots from a pollarded willow.
Hunters In The Snow by Pieter Bruegel The Elder c. 1565 courtesy Kunst Historiches Museum.
Detail: Hunters In The Snow by Pieter Bruegel The Elder c. 1565 courtesy Kunst Historiches Museum.
In another of Bruegel's paintings, Hunters in the Snow, if you look closely at the roadway separating the skating ponds, you'll see what in all likelihood are pollarded willows (see detail of painting above). For a fascinating and very close-up look at more of Pieter Bruegel The Elder’s work you can visit the Kunst Historiches Museum in Vienna website here.
Pollarding in the garden, then, where the act is a management technique as well as an aesthetic practice, is deeply rooted in this ancient agricultural practice. As such, this practice is closely related to coppicing, wherein shrubby willows such as Salix integra ‘Hakuro-nishiki’ and many other deciduous shrubs, when pruned close to the ground in late winter will readily sprout young shoots in the Spring.
Fifteen or twenty years ago Mary and I planted a Silver Willow (Salix alba var. sericea) in a moist area in the far back corner of the garden. Over the years it got much too broad and dense, shading quite a large area, not to mention all the dead branches that fell from the tree year ‘round. In late winter a few years back, I set up an extension ladder against the 10” diameter trunk and, 18’ above ground level and cut every single branch off the tree, leaving nothing but an 18’ high limbless trunk.
By early summer that year, buds broke all around the very top of that limbless trunk. By summer’s end we had a dense 10’ diameter globe-like gathering of silver-gray foliage carried on 5’ silver-gray stems. The following March, and every March since then, I set up my extension ladder against the trunk and cut off all of last year’s branches.
Willow tree in March before pruning back last year’s shoots to the point where they join the trunk Photo ©Gordon Hayward
Years later we purchased a Salix x fragilis f. Vitellina ‘Britzensis’, an upright small tree with silver foliage and gray stems. The true beauty of this small tree is revealed every late Autumn when the leaves fall and then the gray stems gradually take on a dramatic yellow-orange color that lasts all winter.
Prune back as close to the trunk as you can get. Photo ©Gordon Hayward
As you can see in the photo, I prune these back to the trunk and then tie the pruned branches in a kind of woody bouquet and hang them on our white barn doors.
Orange branches against the white barn door look terrific. We leave this “bouquet” of branches up for four weeks or so until early April. Photo ©Gordon Hayward
As I note above, coppicing is pollarding at ground level. We have a Salix integra ‘Hakuro-nishiki’ in the garden that, in one season, readily grows 6’-8’. Every March I coppice this shrub – that is, I prune it to the ground. By early to mid-May, young shoots throw a glowing pink-white foliage.
In another low, wet area, we planted three Black Pussy Willows (Salix gracilistyla ‘Melanostachys’) – recipient of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. It is now reaching its mature height of 8’-10’ and, as such is taking up too much space. I’m going to coppice one of them perhaps 18” or so above grade in a couple weeks to see how it responds but I see no reason why this willow won’t respond as other shrubby willows have. The true pleasure of this shrub are the jet-black catkins that form in mid-March.
Black catkins of the Black Pussy-Willow. Photo ©Gordon Hayward
I have focused on willows in this brief piece because they are the only plants we’re coppicing and pollarding at the moment. There are many, many others that will respond to this severe pruning. Search your garden library or the internet for others that will respond to these two severe pruning techniques.
One extraordinary story about pollarding gathers around the decision to pollard mature 50’-60’ Holm Oaks (Quercus ilex) in a garden literally across the fields from Mary’s hamlet of Hidcote Boyce. In the 1920’s or 1930’s, Lawrence Johnston, the creator of the Hidcote Manor Gardens (now overseen by The National Trust) planted several Holm Oaks to create a woodland garden. 60 or 70 years on, these Holm Oaks were shading great swaths of perennials and shrubs that needed more light.
After considerable research, the Trust made the bold decision to pollard a mature Holm Oak by way of experiment to see how it would respond. In late winter maybe a decade ago, an arborist cut through branches 18” or thicker 20’ or so above ground to literally remove the entire crown of the oak. A 50’-60’ high tree was reduced to a perhaps 24” – 30” limbless 20’ high trunk with stubs where the branches had been cut close to the main trunk. By summer’s end, the top of that trunk was festooned with a half-globe of 6’ – 8’ young branches. Given their success, the arborist went on to pollard all the other Holm Oaks Johnston had planted. Sunlight poured into areas of the garden that had been in shade for decades.
A pollarded Holm Oak at Hidcote Manor Gardens. Photo credit: Hidcote NT