Sometimes, professional gardeners have to do things that are just wrong. Ultimately, the person paying the bill, no matter how much good advice they get, make the call. In this case, I put a weeping willow in a perennial border. Bad idea. It lead to some fierce root competition. It sucks up all water and nutrients and shades things out. In the summer you don’t notice but this time of year you see a giant empty spot around the truck, where absolutely nothing will grow.

So what to do?

Controlling Root Competition

In this case, we dug a circular trench around tree, cutting every root in the first 18 inches of soil. Then we inserted a chemical impregnated root barrier that will kill the roots that touch it. That way, the perennials are protected. And the tree will be sort of starved and dwarfed. This barrier (called Bio-Barrier) last 8 to 10 years.

Prune

This tree is pruned twice a year. That keeps it sort of in check (sort-of, as in, Granddaddy’s just clipped his eyebrows last week) and lets some light penetrate.

We prune for another reason too. That is to make the weeping willow even more weeping. To make it sort of a caricature of itself. Most branches that grow straight up get cut off. Many branches are tipped – to encourage lots of side, weepy branches.

Find a Dwarf

Instead of planting a full-fledged weeping willow, we find a dwarfish variety called Yatsubusa with shorter internodes.

Plant Tough Perennials for Root Competition

Here’s the VERY SHORT list of the plants under or near the willow:

Angelica pachycarpa
Packera aurea
Adenophora liliifolia
Crinum Lily

All of these would prefer a bit more sun, but the seem to tolerate the shade.

Winter Seed In

Since we do have sun during this season, we can take advantage of it for a short while. Well seed in these favorites: Larkspur, Chinese Toadflax and a bit of Black Seeded Simpson lettuce.