Thinking about willow trees

The image above is an elevation slice along the property line that will be getting a windbreak.

What is notable is that more than half of the distance the elevation is at or only slightly above the water-table.

Joe, the fruit and nut grower instantly sees the elevated areas with good drainage. The soggy parts are much harder to populate.

At this point, in a rare moment of practicality, the initial plantings in those areas will almost certainly be various types of willow trees. There are other species that would work, Bald Cypress, Tamarack, American Elm, Silver Maple and a few others...but it is tough to beat the ease of propagating willow cuttings.

This clone was collected along Peppermint Creek and is typical for the species. It is currently trained as "pollard" and needs a haircut.

Several of the clones I will be using were collected "in the wild". Michigan grew a lot of vegetables on "muck fields" before most of that moved to Mexico. Muck is not a "mineral" soil. It is mostly grass that grew in marshes and the old roots and blades of grass fell into the water and did not decay due to lack of oxygen. It is organic. It burns when dry. It also blows away when it is drained. So, most muck fields had windbreaks of...willow trees (or spruce). The farmers used White Willow (Salix alba) or Crack Willow (Salix × fragilis) which are European species. They have more vigor than our native Black Willow (Salix nigra).

Some of the selections have twigs with brown bark. Some have yellow bark. Some of the selections have better "tree" form (called "apical dominance" in the biz). I even have some selections with "curly" twigs which don't get as tall and have denser branching than the standard forms.