Unwrapping living willow on arrival

23 April 2025

Unwrapping Your Living Willow on Arrival

I’ve just received a delivery of living willow, which I’ll be using for several different projects. I wanted to show you how I prepare it when it arrives and how I get it ready for planting or building.

The willow arrives wrapped in plastic. The first thing I do is cut the plastic all the way down the length of the bundle to release it. Once the plastic is removed, you’ll find binding straps around the willow. Some of these are double straps holding two bundles together, while others are single straps holding individual bundles.

I start by cutting the double straps. This separates the larger bundle into smaller, manageable packets, each held together with a single strap.

Once separated, you can see that this is living willow and, in this case, it has already started to form lovely roots at the base. Because of this, I’m not going to trim the ends. Normally, if the willow were drier, I would cut a fresh sloping cut on the base of each rod to help it take up water. However, this delivery arrived fresh, wet, and in excellent condition, so no additional cutting is needed.

All I do at this stage is slightly loosen the middle strap to allow the rods a bit of movement.

Next, I move the willow into my soaking tank. I already have other living willow soaking in there, so this will join the rest. I’ll leave it to soak for 24 to 48 hours to make sure it’s fully hydrated before I use it for planting and building some exciting new projects.

I hope this is helpful for anyone receiving a living willow delivery and wondering how to prepare it.

If you want to buy your own living willow, you can find our range here.

If you fancy making your own living willow structure, you can find how-to guides here, and full kits here.

Want more advice? Check out our other guides here.