Thursday 21st March 2024
The Second Willow Tunnel
On Wednesday I made a trip up to Kent House on Stoughton Drive South to cut down some willow.
This is from where the willow was originally sourced that was used to construct our first willow tunnel at the arboretum the previous March.
The willow rods were roughly sorted into bundles according to size and then brought down to the arboretum for the volunteering programme on Thursday.
In March of 2023 we successfully completed our first tunnel and it has been a pleasure to watch it establish and flourish over the past year.
We were not so fortunate with our planned second tunnel. It was started a couple of weeks later and by then we were running out of good material and the rods had been drying out in the meantime.
The result was that the second tunnel was only partially established and some of the rods actually died off in the following weeks.
The plan was always that this Spring we would have another go at our second tunnel and attempt to repair and make good the structure with some fresh material.
So today we made good on our promise.
The volunteers started by replacing missing and damaged uprights and weavers in the existing structure. Once this was completed we paired up the opposing uprights and tied them together to make a temporary roof structure.
Next went in a run of horizontal binders on both sides of the tunnel. Again this is to give temporary stability to the tunnel while it is being put together and as it starts to grow and spread.
By the end of the day we had made a good start and a second session should give us the required base for growth we seek.
On Sunday some of us are planning to go over Melton Mowbray way, to a willow growing area, run by one of our volunteers. It has been neglected for several years and needs a good pruning. Hopefully by autumn we shall be repaid with basket weaving materials - another project in the pipeline!
