Willows in the vase
Lynette Kinser and Michael Knee

Salix miyabeana

Salix sacchalinensis 'Fantail'

Willow catkins are a welcome sign of spring and the OSU Chadwick Arboretum has probably the largest collection of willows in North America, thanks to graduate student Yulia Kuzovkina-Eischen. In Europe willow twigs are gathered and sold around Easter time, but their use as cut stems is less common in the USA.

We decided to take a look at the opening of buds on cut stems of some of the willows in the Chadwick collection, to see which were most decorative and how long they would last in the vase. Yulia suggested the following species and cultivars for our study (The pictures were taken on the day that we gathered the stems, February 4 2002):

1. Salix chaenomeloides (male)
2. Salix sacchalinensis 'Fantail' (male)
3. Salix 'Golden Curls' (female)
4. Salix gilgeana (male)

5. Salix schwerinii (female)
6. Salix miyabeana (female)
and we added:
7. Salix pentandra (female)

Salix pentandra is not very decorative, but it has been used in previous research on bud dormancy and we thought it would be interesting to include it alongside the more decorative species.

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