Hi,

We had quite a few customers buying living willow before Christmas and they’ve been mostly lucky with the weather.

For most of the UK this mild winter weather is good for planting willow. The ground is wet and if you can manage to plant now you’ll be planting in reasonable conditions with the knowledge we have more rain to come yet. We had one customer worried that the living willow might be planted in ‘water logged’ conditions and that they might rot. This is just the type of conditions living willow loves to be planted in.

So my advice is to plant now. I’m keen for customer to buy now as the weather’s OK for cutting and I won’t ‘freeze to death’.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

Regards

Adrian

December is fast approaching and we’re getting ready for Living Willow orders. December is traditionally a quiet month for Living Willow sales probably because everyone is thinking about Christmas.
However December is a good time to buy because you’ll get the pick of the crop especially if you want the longer lengths.
We’re also a little surprised that Living Willow isn’t more popular as Christmas presents as it’s comparatively cheap and fun to plant. Why not plant a Living Willow igloo ready for the snow they are promising us this winter!

For a long time we’ve used Max Tapener tape tying machines for tying mainly Eucalyptus saplings to canes, to get them to start life in the right direction. Although this ‘handy’ hand tool is quick and easy to use, every time a tie is used a small piece of scrap tape is produced. These small pieces of tape get everywhere especially in the pots that the saplings are growing in. They are unsightly and need clearing up but because they are small and fiddly they take a long time to pick up. So the ‘handy, time saving’ tool actually causes extra work.

I was so fed up with clearing up all the time I looked around the internet for an alternative. I came across Rubangel, a Spanish company who sell a scrap free version of the Max Tapener tying machine. This improved tool  has a modified mechanism that prevents the tool from producing the small piece of scrap tape.

These improved machines were not available in the UK so I asked Rubangel if they wanted a UK distributor. They did, and so we set ourselves up as the sole distributor of Rubangel tape tying machines, staples and tape consumables in the UK.

The tools are slightly more expensive than the Max Tapener but the additional cost is recouped over and over again by the time saved in not clearing up after using it.

Please take a look.