Make Simple, Beautiful Garden Fences and Trellises

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Lee gathers her willow branches in the fall and keeps them in her root cellar, tied into bundles, through winter. Small willow branches, or osiers, can be allowed to dry, then rehydrated by soaking them in water to restore pliability. This won’t work with species other than willow, but that’s OK because in most climates, you can cut green branches year-round, as you need them. While some projects do require willow, which is more pliable and splinter-resistant than other woods, you can still do a lot with branches from random tree species. As I tried my hand at wattle crafts, I used whatever wood was available, which included a little willow and lots of maple, dogwood, oak and other hardwood branches gleaned from my property, as well as from ditches beside public roads. You can use shrub and fruit tree prunings, too.

Make Garden Wickets

By growing her own willow for coppicing (see “Three Wonderful Willows” below), Lee has a renewable wood source on hand for making a variety of garden accessories. “I love the notion that with a few skills, when you need a little fence or plant supports, you don’t have to go buy anything,” Lee says. She and her husband, Lindsay, bend pliable branches into arches to make garden wickets that protect perennials from foot traffic. “If you leave them in place, they can work as plant supports later in the season,” she says, noting any type of wood can be used for wickets. Whether you link them together to form an edging or place them over plants, all that’s involved is bending 3-foot-long smooth, green branches into an arch, then sticking the ends in the ground. Indoors, two parallel wickets inserted into a pot can provide great support for floppy houseplants, like “paperwhite” Narcissus. When using wickets as outdoor plant supports, Lee suggests placing two or three of them over a plant in one direction, then crossing them with another set of wickets that arch over the first (see Image Gallery).

Build Wattle Hurdles

Functional wattle fence panels, called hurdles, make it easy to section off parts of your yard and garden, plus they’re fun to make. In addition to willow, you can use minimally bendable woods, including oak and maple. You should be able to build a hurdle in a single day, provided you have a source of 30 or so 6-foot-long branches that measure less than 1 inch in diameter at the base ends. I rescued some from a roadside ditch, and now I have a beautiful, handmade 3-by-5-foot hurdle to show for my efforts.

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