Woven Willow Beds

Mar 11

Garden by Spanish landscape designer Alvaro Sampedro - link to their Instagram

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It’s hard to think of any other element that brings more old world charm to a garden than that of woven willow beds. The natural structures are handmade of flexible young willow branches that are braided to form a solid base. These beds are a staple in British cottage gardens where willow limbs are not only used for raised beds, but also as borders, plant supports, and structures like obelisks.

Designer Jeanette Whitson’s spectacular Tennessee garden. Her instagram is always such a source of inspiration

Almost 7 years ago, and inspired by Jeanette Whitson’s old world garden in Nashville, Tennessee, I set out to add woven willow beds to my very own garden. I decided that four square beds between the boxwood borders of my front yard would be the perfect addition my then house in Los Angeles. I’d been wishing to add garden boxes to the front yard for a while, but had trouble finding a structure that would blend seamlessly into the other natural elements of the space. Woven ones, would pair perfectly with the layers of creeping Boston ivy vines and the dark brown gnarled hues of the ornamental pear tree branches that framed the space. Finding exactly what I was looking for was a challenge however. After reaching out to a number of British manufacturers such as Water Willows, I learned that although widely available in the UK and EU, woven willow beds were harder to come by in the States.

Woven willow borders being used in Tyler Florence’s terraced Marin County garden designed by The Backyard Farm Co. - Link to their feature on this spectacular garden

As I continued my search for the perfect bed options, I inadvertently learned a lot more about the woven willow products:

The branches start out as flexible green branches from (mostly) hazel and willow trees.
These branches don’t come from the mature trees themselves, but are a by-product of an ancient forest management technique called ‘Coppicing’ which is where certain types of trees are cut down in order for flexible shoots to grow from the stump of the felled tree within a year. If left to grow for an additional year, the thicker shoots would be used as an easy to access firewood.
I enjoyed this post on someone actually constructing their very own circular woven bed

Woven willow beds in the front yard of my home in Los Angeles.

I ended up finding the perfect size square woven willow beds (48” by 48” and 12” tall) from a company called Master Garden Products. I was a little concerned about how well they would hold dirt and how sturdy they would be - the online photos make them look pretty flimsy and loosely woven, but when assembled I found them to be surprisingly sturdy and had no issues keeping dirt in. Sadly, we moved from this house less than 2 years after they were installed, so I can’t personally comment not he longevity of them, but they were showing almost no signs of wear when I last saw them.