Plant · P-141

Basket Willow

Salix viminalis

Basket Willow is coppiced on an annual cycle for the flexible rods used in basketry and woven fencing, and the same regrowth chops and drops as biomass or dries into firewood. It needs permanently damp, non-calcareous ground and reacts to alkaline soil with chlorosis, so it only thrives where moisture is constant - a greywater outfall or pond edge rather than open ground. Its roots are aggressive enough that growers are told to keep it at least 10 meters from a building, and its dried leaves test as nutritious as lucerne for poultry.