Cambo Heritage Trust, Fife.

Can you please spare any willow cuttings for horticultural charity in Fife?

Cambo Heritage Trust is a horticultural, educational and arts/heritage charity based in the East Neuk of Fife which aims to be ‘a place where people and plants flourish’. We manage our lovely three acre walled garden – a mixture of ornamental and productive planting – as an all year round visitor attraction (delicious veggie cafe on site too) – and work with children, young people, adults and supported adults through our learning and engagement programme. See www.cambogardens.org.uk for more info.

Part of my role as Head Gardener at Cambo is to manage our productive gardens and I have inherited a small willow patch in this area which was planted some years ago by Stephanie Bunn and Jon Warnes. We now need to relocate this patch and although we will take cuttings from some of the existing willow stools (S. viminalis and S. britzensis I think), I would like to take the opportunity to refresh the planting by adding some new varieties of suitable basketry willows – ideally Salix purpurea cultivars but open to other good suggestions too – which will give us a range of material to use for workshops and within the garden as plant support material.

As a charity, however, sadly we don’t really have much budget for this project and so I would like to ask please if any SBC members have spare cuttings that they would kindly be willing to part with this winter? Ideally it would be good to have a minimum of 10 cuttings per variety (but five also helpful!) and then we can then gradually build up our stocks at Cambo over a couple of years by propagating these further. I will happily refund your postage myself – either by sending you stamps in return or by a simple bank transfer – if you can help with any cuttings please.

In terms of timescale it would be good to receive any cuttings by mid Feb if possible so that we are able to get them in the ground before the possibility of a dry spring.

Please do get in touch if you can Katherine Taylor – Katherine@cambogardens.org.uk (or personal email ktaylor.home@googlemail.com) or 07905 938449 – and do come and visit the gardens if you are ever in Fife!