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Living willow sculptures |
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Score
68%
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188 votes,
Feasibility
100%
Originality
60%
Humour
10% |
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Ewen McEwen and Susie Dadd call themselves environmental sculptors. Their work at the Chelsea Flower Show consisted of a beautiful formal double trellis, diamond shaped, made from living, leafing wands of willow.
'A double trellis made from living wands of willow'
The optimum time to make a willow sculpture, says Ewen, "is mid-January to mid-February, just when the sap is starting to rise, but before the willow has begun to leaf up."
Where the willow branches in the sculpture cross, they are grafted , not just tied. If the wands 'take' and root into the earth, the screen fuses into a single living structure. The 'take' depends on the aftercare. Willow needs masses of water.
The willow they use is a cultivar of the common Salix viminalis called 'Bowles' Hybrid'. It is very fast growing and can easily put on 12ft in a season if the growing conditions are right.
Because they are so fast growing, these environmental sculptures need looking after. For instance, they planted a Gothic pavilion in a Lincolnshire garden. The owners had been given strict instructions about the need to clip three times a year, in May, July and the end of August. They had gone away for rather a long holiday and had come back to find their willow, evidently very well rooted, looking not so much like a Gothic pavilion as a piece of impenetrable wildwood.
Ewen McEwen and Susie Dadd, Artisan Environmental Sculpture, Apple Tree Cottage, Mansel Lacy, Hereford HR4 7HH (tel 01981 590688).
Summarised from an article by Anna Pavord in the Independent, April 27th '96.
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