Pruning your willow

Willows are best pruned in the spring.

1. Prune your willow in early spring before the leaves start to appear.
2. Cut off any broken, dead, diseased, or crossing branches.
3. Thin out any branches that are too close together or growing in the wrong direction.
4. Trim any suckers that emerge from the base.
5. Cut any branches that are too long or unbalanced by a third of the total branch length. This will help to encourage more shoots which will create a thicker head on the plant.
   It hard to over prune a willow as it will always grow back, as the new growth becomes 100mm long you can prune the tips of the new growth to encourage more branches.