How to curb growth

Possibilities to keep the weeping willow small

• regular cut
• Bucket keeping
• braid a privacy screen

Regular cut

While other trees can safely get by with an annual cut, the weeping willow needs more intensive care. Especially if you want to keep your deciduous tree as small as possible, the pruning should be a little more radical several times a year.

Bucket keeping

Can you imagine keeping the huge deciduous tree in the bucket? Give it a try! With intensive care, you can also cultivate the weeping willow on a small scale. However, the following aspects are required:

• the bucket must be wider than it is high
• provide the tree with sufficient nutrients
• use a buttress to help young trees grow upright in their first few years
• water your weeping willow regularly
• add liquid fertilizer to the irrigation water once or twice a month
• radically prune the weeping willow annually in the spring

Braid a privacy screen

Although the weeping willow does not appear in its actual growth form with this method, you benefit twice from the tree. How about if you use the rapid growth of young shoots to build a privacy screen from them? This is how you do it:

1. Cut off young shoots from an existing tree
2. Put this in the ground where the privacy screen will later rise
3. Water the cuttings well
4. Soon the branches sprout and grow larger
5. To begin with, support the branches with a stake
6. When the shoots have reached the desired height, braid them together
7. Cut off the protruding ends