If you scratch a branch with your finger nail do you see green? If not they're probably dead.
These things are grafted onto a root stock and, in my experience, short lived. They are willows so require a lot of water. Mine curled up, despite being well watered, after just 5 or 6 years. A friend's died after 7.
In the end I was pleased mine died as its grafted head grew its branches far too long for the root stock stem and I was forever pruning the thing to stop the branches swamping ground cover and other plants.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast. "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
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I would expect to see developing buds on any willow now. Flower and/or leaf.
What did they look like at the end of last season?
In the sticks near Peterborough
If you scratch a branch with your finger nail do you see green? If not they're probably dead.
These things are grafted onto a root stock and, in my experience, short lived. They are willows so require a lot of water. Mine curled up, despite being well watered, after just 5 or 6 years. A friend's died after 7.
In the end I was pleased mine died as its grafted head grew its branches far too long for the root stock stem and I was forever pruning the thing to stop the branches swamping ground cover and other plants.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
I dug mine out a couple of weeks ago. Got very fed up with it taking up so much room in a very small bed outside my bedroom window.
They don't offer much after the catkins have gone do they
There was one in a prominent position in one of my work gardens
In the sticks near Peterborough
This one didn't even grace us with that many catkins.
Another plant the previous owners planted which I've now removed.