It's done because willow specifically is prone to infections so by pollarding the infection will stop at the knuckle and not continue to the main parts of the tree
Thank you for not filling those holes with resin. Reminds me of my childhood when I visit my grandparents' house with all the wooden furniture with imperfections like this.
Yea i mean it looked nice but imagine if you were contained in a room made of human flesh with deformed and polished edges. That doesn’t seem too nice.
if that body is covered in limb scars, it's clearly got some interesting things hiding in there... So, if you're ever walking around a city or a park or even just your own neighborhood, and you see a person that looks like it's been cut back to just a big ol' nub, you now know what to call it. *your new partner*
Beavers actually do this naturally. When they harvest willow wood they usually don’t kill the trees and that causes them to grow back denser. I love waking around the beaver dams because these things build and alter the areas they live in almost like people do.
@@Reptilian-Boss The willows where I live have short trunks about a foot tall that split into many tall limbs, so when the beavers chew off these limbs, more branches regrow from the short trunk. Beavers only seem to fell tall trees because they need branches, with short ones like these willows it’s easier for them to just remove the branches directly.
Thank you for not filling those holes with resin. Reminds me of my childhood when I visit my grandparents' house with all the wooden furniture with imperfections like this.
Pollarding has originally done to produce a lot of straight branches to be turned into staves. They started out pruning them right above the ground to make the staves easy to harvest, but then deer kept getting to the young branches, so they started doing it up high out of their reach.
Hmm hadn't heard staves, I was told it's for firewood kindling as the smaller thinner branches produced are more desirable and can be harvested more regularly
We pollard trees, especially willows, to use those supple young shoots for weaving fences, baskets, furniture, wreaths and such. All those willow wreaths you buy in the craft stores start this way, as does every woven willow wicker furniture piece. Those lovely handcrafted baskets have to have a lot of supple willow branches to be made. Here's where that stuff comes from. It's like growing any other crop. The more you know!
I just watched a really interesting video on that exact subject a few days ago. Incredible plant! Pretty cool that the trunk itself can have artistic value too after it’s been pollarded to harvest its thin, useful shoots.
In northern Portugal, they also used the young shoots to tie vines to overhead structures - keep the vines off the damp ground and to get as much sunlight as possible. People now use plastic ties or string, and wonder why there are so many willow trees near vines.
Thanks for explaining some of the positives. I recently was talking to my fiancé about how bad this is for trees in people’s yards. Most people do it to keep big limbs from over sidewalks or power lines, but they cut the whole tree back instead of removing problem limbs. I was really upset because a whole city block was like that. I knew there had to be a real reason why people do it, but I knew that that reason had nothing to do with neighborhood trees.
I vaguely recall reading somewhere that pollarding was also used to produce arrow and crossbow bolt shafts. I have no clue where I read it, so I can't back that up factually.
In Swedish we call it “hamla” and fun fact/story: our willow, originally, is just a little branch from our next door neighbor, that we got after he had “hamlat” his willow. Sooo for the first few years it looked pretty stupid with just a planted branch in our yard 💀 but now ~10 years later we have a cute little willow, guarding our home 🥰
My dad did that with a mimosa tree. Just took a branch and stuck it in the ground. Eventually it became a beautiful tree in the shape of a Y and it broke my heart when half of it snapped off in a storm and we had to cut the rest down because it turns out it had some kind of fungal infection.
Oh man.... I just went back 4 years into the past. I LOVED watching your content during Covid but I eventually deleted TIKTOK, and haven't seen anything since. Man this brought me back. I even gave an audible "Aw no way!" when I scrolled onto this video. Heck yeah.
@@mpjstuffI know right! Who tf likes runny eggs?? Imagine calling me weird for wearing the skins of my ancestors quilted into an oversized cloak when you eat runny eggs…Humans are creepy lol
@@snickers_barr7135I'm sorry, is the guy who made a beautiful vase out of an already incredibly deformed and likely already dead piece of wood evil? Aww, maybe you should stop focusing on individuals and focus on the big corps who are chopping down millions of acres of forest in the Amazon and other places worldwide!
It's not like that was a hidden reference or anything he literally showed the image. No-ones talking about it because it was blatantly obvious, not some clever easter-egg
Spectacular knotting. Beautiful final piece! Great spot. I'm not a wood worker but I used to stare at wood paneling as a kid, mesmerized by the patterns.
I’m dutch and where I’m from in primary school we’d have a “pollarding day” every year where we’d go out and help pollarding the willow trees for a day. It was always great fun and afterwards we’d roast a little breaddough on a stick (which we picked and cut ourselves ofcourse) over the campfire which was arguably the best part :)
I mostly did this with my mom, we'd cut back our bougainvilleas (one stabbed my scalp once) and rose bushes. Didn't know there was a word for it until today :)
@@muurrarium9460 we cut literally all the branches off and leave them as stumps. Pruning to me is just trimming dead branches or ones that need to go for other reasons
@@waffleaffle231Pollarding willows is not the same as pruning roses. If you prune roses in the same way as willows, you are doing it wrong. (the Dutch name of that specific willow is "Knotwilg")
So cool, right?! Ever heard of a "copse of trees"? It's usually a small stand of trees that are close together, and used to be how one would describe a group of trees that were 'coppiced,' or cut to ground level, allowing new growth from the trunk and a convenient renewable source of fire wood.
This was really cool. And you took me all the way back to the first time I was taught to use a lathe. I never was anything special (carpentry-wise) and the biggest project that made it out of shop class was a pathetic looking hinged box (but it held, and I still have it 36 years later) that I stained within an inch of its life. It looked nothing like your vase, but as a 13-year-old kid and the only girl in the class, I felt pretty cool anyway. This makes me miss woodworking, and I'm delighted that YT randomly dropped you into my algorithm!
In Belgium and in the Nederlands as well, trees like willows are planted along field edges. They act like natural pumps, helping to keep swampy fields dry. These trees are regularly in dutch "knotted", usually every year or two, to prevent them from getting too heavy and breaking under their own weight. The wood is mostly used as fire wood since it is not that strong and dry relatively Quickly .
My town got hit by a really bad ice storm in October two years ago before the trees could lose all their branches. The ice clung to the leaves and made the branches so heavy they broke off all the trees. There was a bunch of property damage to houses and cars, entire trees fell over, and almost everyone lost power for a week. It makes me sad to see all of the trees still broken today, but a lot of them have begun pollarding just like you said!
Very cool piece of wood. Pollarding is reminiscent of how you would prune for bonsai. You let branches grow and thicken to thicken up the trunk and then chop them off and have finer branches and then continue the process until you get a lot of taper from trunk to branch tip.
If you ever get tired of turning wood, don't get tired of using your voice! From another gentleman who's trying to find his way through the world of fascinating listeners with a voice that kind of sounds like Sam Elliott with a little bit of Uncle Sam mixed in. And yes, I also turn wood.
As an arborist, pollarding is highly frowned upon in the industry. Unless you’re harvesting the fruits of the tree this is pointless. It creates weak branch unions, and promotes rot. If you’re going for longevity DO NOT pollard your trees. Ask an arborist for an opinion on what to do if you don’t know what you’re doing. They’ll be glad to educate you on how to properly care for your trees.
I just learned of the process recently. My understanding is that willow branches are a popular choice to use for wicker and basket weaving. So they harvest the branches for that on a regular basis. It was on the Low Tech magazine website.
That piece is just stunning. I wood look at that thing all day. If your channel just did wood, I'd watch every day. It's just so beautiful and people take for granted how much we owe to wood. I love wood. Very nice job, and very interesting info about it and how to handle it.
Fun fact: I live in an area that is historically known for pollarding, Flanders. And the Flemish word for a pollard is "knot", so we call it knotting... Seems pretty appropriate, wouldn't you agree? We got tons and tons of pieces like that lying around rotting away for multiple reasons. Reason 1: it's unusable as construction wood or as cutting Reason 2: it's crap to split, and even if you can split it, it stacks like dung, so it's really not appreciated as firewood _especially_ because the rest of the tree has such perfect wood with long straight grain that splits and stacks like a dream, so you're really not going to waste all your time on a cut-off from a pollard. (or a whole pollard if the tree got over 500 years and outlived its viability) But now this gets interesting: Reason 3: environmental reasons! Pollards are known to become microbiotopes hosting dozens to 100+ species that live in just a few cycles with each other. Fungus, moss, herbs, even bushes, insects, birds (nests and all), rodents, lizards, amphibious creatures (puddles can form inside the pollard and stay wet for weeks through a dry spell), predators (tree martens LOVE pollard willows),... Leaving the cut pollard on site keeps all these species on site as well, so they can migrate to nearby pollards or populate the new pollard as it forms... (the pollard seen in this video is likely from a 10 year old fresh pollard that was reset. When they are around this diameter, they need to be reset below the pollard to avoid the tree suffocating itself in the crown. This widens the reach of the branches and opens up the crown allowing for a lot more places to sprout new branches. Pollard willows are a source of materials that can be used for a wide variety of purposes, from firewood and charcoal for blacksmiths, to furniture, fencing, and even baskets, and greenery scaffolds. I personally grow them for art.
@@susanmcmasterson956 unfortunately I don't have any digital portfolio... But there are some horticulturists who do similar things, I'll grab a link for you :)
@@susanmcmasterson956 I've been working on larger projects than this one too. The downside is it takes many years before you actually get to see roughly what the intended structure will be. And if something comes up that interrupts the work, it can all be lost. I have lost a couple of my projects when I had a car accident that landed me in hospital for 7.5 months and unable to do the required work for the next 2 years... I had to give up on those projects. The biggest one I'm working on, is an actual house (something between a shed, a workshop and a teepee - the accident also caused issues with this project, but I was able to redesign the plans and go on from what it had grown into). The roof should be done in about 10 years. From there I can grow additional floors... When manipulating willow, you can just add genetically identical trunks by planting cuttings, and when scraping the bark on the spots where the woven branches touch, they graft and become one living organism. The advantage is that when something happens and a trunk dies, you can just replace it by a new one and let it grow into the existing structure. Shaping growth and manipulating where branches grow is very well explained on the channel @Skillcult who uses his knowledge and techniques to create interesting fruit trees that bear various kinds of fruit on a single tree and make them easier to maintain and harvest. There are so many things we can do with trees that so little people know about and even less people actually use. The techniques that I use are mostly used for organic playgrounds for children, which is a great application. But I would like to create both functional and esthetically pleasing organisms. And there is no building permit required, because we're talking about shaping a bush or a tree. My ultimate dream is to make a sustainable home with an integrated living scaffold. It does require revising "normal" expectations, though. Floors would never be even, so furniture should be adjustable movable or flexible, or even living as well. Lots of hanging applications and tensegrity are used in my design. I'm struggling a little with finding a sustainable solution for consistent insulation, because I want it to not interfere with the continuous growth of the scaffold, yet be integrally tight/sealed. So what I do is a little bit in between construction, architecture, arborism and art. I know for a fact that I will not live long enough to fully see my ideas realized, but that doesn't hold me back in developing them further :))
@@susanmcmasterson956 that longer message was a comment that followed the link I posted. Unfortunately it already got removed. So I'm going to try and write it in such a way that it'll stay up, but you might have to edit it in the address bar... (like I will write "dot" where you'll have to put an actual "." )
When I came across your account I was fascinated, and then you taught us “chatoyancy”. Ever since I’ve been telling everyone I know what it is when I see it. So cool to be taught something and teach someone else about it too!
This is the first thing I've seen from this creator, so it sounded like bizarre jibberish when he said, "Pollarding chatoyancyyyy" in that slow-mo echo effect. I was so confused, but your comment just taught me "chatoyancy" by giving me a spelling to google, and redeemed the entire short in my mind, so thanks!
honestly always thought it was an attempt to kill trees in a situation where they couldn’t legally chop the tree down with paperwork but it would technically be considered pruning or something along those lines
For certain kinds of trees it could be, and for even more if done at the wrong time it could be. But for this specific kind of willow (knot-willow when directly translated from Dutch, dunno how it's called in English) it's common practice. Partially because the branches of this are very flexible, thin, yet sturdy, which made them very useful and wanted. But also because it has been proven over centuries of doing this that it doesn't directly harm the tree if done right.
Actually, for this type of willow, the "pollarding" is necessary. This tree grows very quickly and is very flexible when young. This means that if you were to let it grow naturally, without pruning, it would grow too tall, catch too much wind and eventually split off fat branches, wounding the tree. (trees can bleed out if this happens in summer when there's a lot of sap circulation) It could split right down the middle and die. A fast growing tree is not strong, it can't take the wind. Casting off big branches in storms is normal if left intact, but it hurts the tree and is dangerous for us. Good maintenance of a willow means cutting all branches off every two to three years. So all branches are young and flexible. This means the tree can grow old without risking wind damage. It's a tree that sprouts new growth so easily, it can grow a whole new tree from a discarded branch. Just stick a bit of tree in the mud and voila, new willow.
Pollarding is also done to provide food for sheep, cattle, goats or other animals in times of drought. Trees may also look like this if they are cut back from powerlines to make sure they don't create a fire. Blessings from South Eastern Australia, Dot
this is the second time this week I hear about pollarding in a youtube video. the first one was in Grian's Hermitcraft episode, I've never even heard this word before, what is going on?
Trees that are pollarded or coppiced (the same, but different) live longer than if they just lived out their natural lives. It's also a great way to get more sustainable firewood out of a given size of woodlot.
When done at ground level it’s called coppicing, both are used to generate lots of small branches for stakes and weaving etc but pollarding has the advantage of being too high for most herbivores to browse the shoots
American people don't know what's pollarding?? That's something that been around all my life in Brazil, my mom did it uncountable times to our trees. That's such a common thing
You call it Pollarding, I'll call it tree body horror
If you call all tree body horror by the name "tree body horror" you're gonna have a lot of things named tree body horror
@@rianantonyoh yeah like bonsai. man am I happy we can't hear the screams of pain 😂
It's done because willow specifically is prone to infections so by pollarding the infection will stop at the knuckle and not continue to the main parts of the tree
@@Joghurt2499, maybe they're screams of pleasure?? 🤷♂️
Tree circumcising
Thank you for not filling those holes with resin. Reminds me of my childhood when I visit my grandparents' house with all the wooden furniture with imperfections like this.
Wow that unlocked a memory of me loosing small toys like legos in a tree table my grandpa made. It was a cool table! Just not for building legos 😂
Yes! Nice to see some woodwork on here that isn't full of plastic
Yes this and the worm marks were so cool
@@hannahware3751, I read that as "... losing small boys."
You should look up pecky homes.
That final vase and the twig in the same color palette was absolutely beautiful.
Love ittttt
Yea i mean it looked nice but imagine if you were contained in a room made of human flesh with deformed and polished edges. That doesn’t seem too nice.
Nahh ur lying
Treeckogeek that is the best comment I will read today
You mean horrific
"I mean look At DEEZ KNOTZ."
-Justin the trees
This comment is criminally underrated
I love the smell of deez knotz
That is knot funny
uwu
@@garthbrown2154it's just a degenerate lewd joke man
Get yourself a partner who looks at you the way Justin looks at wood
EDIT: your minds are dirtier than a burger king kitchen.
Sounds gay, I'm in.
Pause
if that body is covered in limb scars, it's clearly got some interesting things hiding in there...
So, if you're ever walking around a city or a park or even just your own neighborhood, and you see a person that looks like it's been cut back to just a big ol' nub, you now know what to call it.
*your new partner*
😏
Ayo
that would make a nice lamp base.
I knew I'd find this comment! 👍😀
Beavers actually do this naturally.
When they harvest willow wood they usually don’t kill the trees and that causes them to grow back denser.
I love waking around the beaver dams because these things build and alter the areas they live in almost like people do.
Some of my ancestors had a surname "Pollard". Apparently, they pollarded for a living in England.
So, they climb the tree and chew off the limbs?
@@Reptilian-Boss The willows where I live have short trunks about a foot tall that split into many tall limbs, so when the beavers chew off these limbs, more branches regrow from the short trunk. Beavers only seem to fell tall trees because they need branches, with short ones like these willows it’s easier for them to just remove the branches directly.
@@JosephsDesign
Oh, cool. 😉👍
I had a feeling you'd explain.
Beavers rule
Thank you for not filling those holes with resin. Reminds me of my childhood when I visit my grandparents' house with all the wooden furniture with imperfections like this.
Pollarding has originally done to produce a lot of straight branches to be turned into staves. They started out pruning them right above the ground to make the staves easy to harvest, but then deer kept getting to the young branches, so they started doing it up high out of their reach.
Hmm hadn't heard staves, I was told it's for firewood kindling as the smaller thinner branches produced are more desirable and can be harvested more regularly
@j.stronsky2166 couldn't it be for both and also other reasons?
Do you even work with wood? Have you studied trees?
Are you an arborist?
@@ShilohSapira bit aggressive m8
wrong willow is not originally used for staves its originally used for building fances and houses thats why they did what they did.
I heard it was done in order to create conversational conflict at the local pubs.
"It's neat. Look how neat. Ok bye!" has the same energy as a kid at show-and-tell, and I love it
That has got to be the single most beautiful piece I've seen from you, in my opinion. And a vocabulary lesson? Heck yes.
Agreed
Stunning. I'm in awe.
Yes, stunning and ❤you and your vocabulary lessons! Please keep doing what you do and being you! You make my day!!!
I love learning about other people’s obsessions, and this wood is beautiful!
and now someone from China has seen this and now making plastic versions that look just like this :)
The Whomping Willow reference 😂
You have unintentionally summoned a whole different demographic of knot enjoyers
Look at those knots... :3
Fr tho, our community has completely ruined the word “knot” for me in any other context TwT
@@Crux___agreed.
The Rock eyebrow rise boom sound*
Whitney 😱 Wisconsin
We pollard trees, especially willows, to use those supple young shoots for weaving fences, baskets, furniture, wreaths and such. All those willow wreaths you buy in the craft stores start this way, as does every woven willow wicker furniture piece. Those lovely handcrafted baskets have to have a lot of supple willow branches to be made. Here's where that stuff comes from. It's like growing any other crop. The more you know!
I just watched a really interesting video on that exact subject a few days ago. Incredible plant! Pretty cool that the trunk itself can have artistic value too after it’s been pollarded to harvest its thin, useful shoots.
In northern Portugal, they also used the young shoots to tie vines to overhead structures - keep the vines off the damp ground and to get as much sunlight as possible.
People now use plastic ties or string, and wonder why there are so many willow trees near vines.
Thanks for explaining some of the positives. I recently was talking to my fiancé about how bad this is for trees in people’s yards. Most people do it to keep big limbs from over sidewalks or power lines, but they cut the whole tree back instead of removing problem limbs. I was really upset because a whole city block was like that. I knew there had to be a real reason why people do it, but I knew that that reason had nothing to do with neighborhood trees.
That’s very cool!
I vaguely recall reading somewhere that pollarding was also used to produce arrow and crossbow bolt shafts.
I have no clue where I read it, so I can't back that up factually.
In Swedish we call it “hamla” and fun fact/story: our willow, originally, is just a little branch from our next door neighbor, that we got after he had “hamlat” his willow. Sooo for the first few years it looked pretty stupid with just a planted branch in our yard 💀 but now ~10 years later we have a cute little willow, guarding our home 🥰
Tak så myket 😅
Hamla is 'attack' in Hindi.
My dad did that with a mimosa tree. Just took a branch and stuck it in the ground. Eventually it became a beautiful tree in the shape of a Y and it broke my heart when half of it snapped off in a storm and we had to cut the rest down because it turns out it had some kind of fungal infection.
Good god stop saying we you were under 7
@@Joeysaladslover I’m 28 and “we” refers to me and my now husband…
Oh man.... I just went back 4 years into the past. I LOVED watching your content during Covid but I eventually deleted TIKTOK, and haven't seen anything since. Man this brought me back. I even gave an audible "Aw no way!" when I scrolled onto this video. Heck yeah.
I am knot dissapointed by how this looks😂
🤤🤤
@@aferdeath9320 :(
@@aferdeath9320 what...?
I'm actually scared you might be my dad
@@aferdeath9320not that kind of knot
I just realized that he basically planted a child in a piece of its relative
Edit: OMG, thank you for 1k likes
wait so youre telling me you dont wear the skins of your dead relatives from time to time?
@@poodle101do you also mimic your dead relatives voices and act like a skin walker? ☺️
It's like a sunny side up egg on a chicken sandwich. The horror!
@@poodle101Well I sure do. Idk about these weirdos on here…
@@mpjstuffI know right! Who tf likes runny eggs??
Imagine calling me weird for wearing the skins of my ancestors quilted into an oversized cloak when you eat runny eggs…Humans are creepy lol
The title of this short is making me giggle to myself as I officially toss my brain into the gutter.
If you know, you know. 🐾
💀
I love knotting!
Ayo
what
same
👍
uhh pim i would really not be screaming that atop of your lungs...
"LOOK AT THESE KNOTS"
Holy shit the furries watching this video
Furries hearing the word knot is like a sleeper agent being activated lol
UwU
Came looking for this comment, thank you, lmao.
@@vuk_ustipak That is correct.
(why do you know what it means?)
I’m so in love…with that vase!!! Really!! Your work blows my mind . I have quite an affinity with trees so your channel brings great joy!!
He calls it pollarding… I call it tree murd*r😟😢
@@snickers_barr7135I'm sorry, is the guy who made a beautiful vase out of an already incredibly deformed and likely already dead piece of wood evil? Aww, maybe you should stop focusing on individuals and focus on the big corps who are chopping down millions of acres of forest in the Amazon and other places worldwide!
Nice Harry Potter ref. Gorgeous work
I THOUGHT NO ONE ELSE NOTICED AND WAS SO UTTERLY DISAPPOINTED, YOU MADE MY DAY
I can't believe that more people didn't comment on this 😂
Yes
Yes
It's not like that was a hidden reference or anything he literally showed the image. No-ones talking about it because it was blatantly obvious, not some clever easter-egg
Why did I blink and flinch when the wood shavings fling at the camera
Cuz ur a wuss lol
Spectacular knotting. Beautiful final piece! Great spot. I'm not a wood worker but I used to stare at wood paneling as a kid, mesmerized by the patterns.
oh god, knots
@@netfox9855 hehehehehehe, knotting, hehehehe
@@netfox9855 I love knotting and showing knotting content to all my friends and family
I love knots! Knotting is so satisfying 🥰
Bruh 😂
I hate that I immediately understood the joke…
this comment is gonna turn me to christianity just so i can tell you to seek god
One of my people!
Someone explain the reference?
I’m dutch and where I’m from in primary school we’d have a “pollarding day” every year where we’d go out and help pollarding the willow trees for a day. It was always great fun and afterwards we’d roast a little breaddough on a stick (which we picked and cut ourselves ofcourse) over the campfire which was arguably the best part :)
We also have the bread dough on a stick tradition (stokbrood, lekker met stroop en kaas) after 'arbour day' in South Africa.
I mostly did this with my mom, we'd cut back our bougainvilleas (one stabbed my scalp once) and rose bushes. Didn't know there was a word for it until today :)
@@waffleaffle231 I think that is just called "pruning".
@@muurrarium9460 we cut literally all the branches off and leave them as stumps. Pruning to me is just trimming dead branches or ones that need to go for other reasons
@@waffleaffle231Pollarding willows is not the same as pruning roses. If you prune roses in the same way as willows, you are doing it wrong.
(the Dutch name of that specific willow is "Knotwilg")
So cool, right?! Ever heard of a "copse of trees"? It's usually a small stand of trees that are close together, and used to be how one would describe a group of trees that were 'coppiced,' or cut to ground level, allowing new growth from the trunk and a convenient renewable source of fire wood.
You just summoned an entire fandom
Which one?
What fandom?
@@J12338harry potter, when he said womping willow. Its a famous 400 year old tree in the grounds of hogwarts
@@moizahmed7392I thought they were referring to the furry community with how often knots were mentioned
Galaxy Quest, right? Right? 'Cuz of the lathe? Anyone?
Wow! That has to be the most beautiful piece I've seen you turn! Exquisite!
I genuinely appreciate and love designers that play along imperfections in nature. Thank you for having the vision.
In this case is it really imperfections of nature or man made imperfections 💁🏾
Bro made a Harry Potter Whomping Willow reference IM OUT BYE
This was really cool. And you took me all the way back to the first time I was taught to use a lathe. I never was anything special (carpentry-wise) and the biggest project that made it out of shop class was a pathetic looking hinged box (but it held, and I still have it 36 years later) that I stained within an inch of its life. It looked nothing like your vase, but as a 13-year-old kid and the only girl in the class, I felt pretty cool anyway. This makes me miss woodworking, and I'm delighted that YT randomly dropped you into my algorithm!
In Belgium and in the Nederlands as well, trees like willows are planted along field edges. They act like natural pumps, helping to keep swampy fields dry. These trees are regularly in dutch "knotted", usually every year or two, to prevent them from getting too heavy and breaking under their own weight.
The wood is mostly used as fire wood since it is not that strong and dry relatively Quickly .
We have willow trees but mostly by the canal banks. Very beautiful tho!
The branches of the willow were used to make fences and baskets.
After “knotting” our willows we gave the thinnest branches to our horses. Something for them to nibble on.
A few branches per day.
Wow, this is so cool. This reminds me of my great uncle Roland. Thank you for the nostalgia.
wait, what does that mean
@@saltmuffinLGDPSI think their uncle is dead.
Imagine carving out a human, and placing another human in the carved out human, thats the trees perspective in this 😳
My town got hit by a really bad ice storm in October two years ago before the trees could lose all their branches. The ice clung to the leaves and made the branches so heavy they broke off all the trees. There was a bunch of property damage to houses and cars, entire trees fell over, and almost everyone lost power for a week. It makes me sad to see all of the trees still broken today, but a lot of them have begun pollarding just like you said!
Wait a few years then start looking for cedars that it bent badly but didn't kill. You can get some of the most beautiful grain patterns.
Love that HP whomping willow reference. 😂Also, the end result looks dope as hell.
I was looking for this comment. Found you potterhead
Same😂😂😂
😭😂
Harry Potter fans are summoned
womp womp
In Balgium where I live these tree are very common and are also a good source for fire wood every time it gets chopped👍
Here in Germany too. They also made baskets with them. We have some really old ones in our village, they are so big, the kids hide inside.
Netherlands too!
Grain Minecraft sent me
Same
I love all that _pollarding chatoyancy_
I’m sorry what did you call me?!
Man this channel makes me wanna get into woodworking so I can go out and find some gnarly old trash wood and shape it up into a cool vase 😆
Same!
DO IT
“Look at dees knots” nice
That turned out beautifully.
Have you looked into how traditional wooden chess sets are made? Might be a fun and challenging project
💯
This is absolutely gorgeous. I love it very unique look
you must be joking
Very cool piece of wood. Pollarding is reminiscent of how you would prune for bonsai. You let branches grow and thicken to thicken up the trunk and then chop them off and have finer branches and then continue the process until you get a lot of taper from trunk to branch tip.
i appreciate these videos for the beautiful woodworking, and for the vocab lesson. now i know chattoyancy and pollarding, lol
Pollarding also produces straighter branches which can be useful for pole turning
If you ever get tired of turning wood, don't get tired of using your voice!
From another gentleman who's trying to find his way through the world of fascinating listeners with a voice that kind of sounds like Sam Elliott with a little bit of Uncle Sam mixed in.
And yes, I also turn wood.
Knots can add so much character to a piece like that. Beautiful work!
As an arborist, pollarding is highly frowned upon in the industry. Unless you’re harvesting the fruits of the tree this is pointless. It creates weak branch unions, and promotes rot. If you’re going for longevity DO NOT pollard your trees. Ask an arborist for an opinion on what to do if you don’t know what you’re doing. They’ll be glad to educate you on how to properly care for your trees.
a single tree is more beautiful than any poem
You'll probably never see a poem as lovely as a tree. I think , anyway.
You'll probably never seen a really lovely tree. I think , anyway@@ToddiGreat-le2qu
@@ZeldaOtaku1 huh ?
@@ZeldaOtaku1 I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree upon.......
oh I'm sorry boss I thought you were saying that poems were lovelier than trees. My mistake @@ToddiGreat-le2qu
Omg!!!! That's is beautiful with some fern and baby breath .ohh goodness wat a beautiful piece of art. Thank you for sharing
There is a creek sort of near here that is lined with these massive trees that have been pollarded
As a tree guy, it pains me to hear processes I use mispronounced. It is PILL-ARD. If you want to educate, make sure you are first
Damn bro, why’re you so aggressive about it though? you could’ve politely told him the correct pronunciation 😭😭
I just learned of the process recently. My understanding is that willow branches are a popular choice to use for wicker and basket weaving. So they harvest the branches for that on a regular basis. It was on the Low Tech magazine website.
Also a way to protect young sprouts from grazing animals without fencing.
Always love watching your videos. Wonderful work!
That piece is just stunning. I wood look at that thing all day. If your channel just did wood, I'd watch every day. It's just so beautiful and people take for granted how much we owe to wood. I love wood. Very nice job, and very interesting info about it and how to handle it.
Fun fact: I live in an area that is historically known for pollarding, Flanders. And the Flemish word for a pollard is "knot", so we call it knotting... Seems pretty appropriate, wouldn't you agree?
We got tons and tons of pieces like that lying around rotting away for multiple reasons.
Reason 1: it's unusable as construction wood or as cutting
Reason 2: it's crap to split, and even if you can split it, it stacks like dung, so it's really not appreciated as firewood _especially_ because the rest of the tree has such perfect wood with long straight grain that splits and stacks like a dream, so you're really not going to waste all your time on a cut-off from a pollard. (or a whole pollard if the tree got over 500 years and outlived its viability)
But now this gets interesting:
Reason 3: environmental reasons! Pollards are known to become microbiotopes hosting dozens to 100+ species that live in just a few cycles with each other. Fungus, moss, herbs, even bushes, insects, birds (nests and all), rodents, lizards, amphibious creatures (puddles can form inside the pollard and stay wet for weeks through a dry spell), predators (tree martens LOVE pollard willows),...
Leaving the cut pollard on site keeps all these species on site as well, so they can migrate to nearby pollards or populate the new pollard as it forms... (the pollard seen in this video is likely from a 10 year old fresh pollard that was reset. When they are around this diameter, they need to be reset below the pollard to avoid the tree suffocating itself in the crown. This widens the reach of the branches and opens up the crown allowing for a lot more places to sprout new branches. Pollard willows are a source of materials that can be used for a wide variety of purposes, from firewood and charcoal for blacksmiths, to furniture, fencing, and even baskets, and greenery scaffolds. I personally grow them for art.
Very cool. Is there a way that I could see the art that you create? Can you add a link?
@@susanmcmasterson956 unfortunately I don't have any digital portfolio... But there are some horticulturists who do similar things, I'll grab a link for you :)
@@susanmcmasterson956 I've been working on larger projects than this one too. The downside is it takes many years before you actually get to see roughly what the intended structure will be. And if something comes up that interrupts the work, it can all be lost. I have lost a couple of my projects when I had a car accident that landed me in hospital for 7.5 months and unable to do the required work for the next 2 years... I had to give up on those projects. The biggest one I'm working on, is an actual house (something between a shed, a workshop and a teepee - the accident also caused issues with this project, but I was able to redesign the plans and go on from what it had grown into).
The roof should be done in about 10 years.
From there I can grow additional floors...
When manipulating willow, you can just add genetically identical trunks by planting cuttings, and when scraping the bark on the spots where the woven branches touch, they graft and become one living organism.
The advantage is that when something happens and a trunk dies, you can just replace it by a new one and let it grow into the existing structure.
Shaping growth and manipulating where branches grow is very well explained on the channel @Skillcult who uses his knowledge and techniques to create interesting fruit trees that bear various kinds of fruit on a single tree and make them easier to maintain and harvest. There are so many things we can do with trees that so little people know about and even less people actually use.
The techniques that I use are mostly used for organic playgrounds for children, which is a great application. But I would like to create both functional and esthetically pleasing organisms. And there is no building permit required, because we're talking about shaping a bush or a tree.
My ultimate dream is to make a sustainable home with an integrated living scaffold. It does require revising "normal" expectations, though. Floors would never be even, so furniture should be adjustable movable or flexible, or even living as well. Lots of hanging applications and tensegrity are used in my design. I'm struggling a little with finding a sustainable solution for consistent insulation, because I want it to not interfere with the continuous growth of the scaffold, yet be integrally tight/sealed.
So what I do is a little bit in between construction, architecture, arborism and art. I know for a fact that I will not live long enough to fully see my ideas realized, but that doesn't hold me back in developing them further :))
@@susanmcmasterson956 that longer message was a comment that followed the link I posted. Unfortunately it already got removed. So I'm going to try and write it in such a way that it'll stay up, but you might have to edit it in the address bar... (like I will write "dot" where you'll have to put an actual "." )
thank you for your knowledge magical tree man
When I came across your account I was fascinated, and then you taught us “chatoyancy”. Ever since I’ve been telling everyone I know what it is when I see it. So cool to be taught something and teach someone else about it too!
This is the first thing I've seen from this creator, so it sounded like bizarre jibberish when he said, "Pollarding chatoyancyyyy" in that slow-mo echo effect. I was so confused, but your comment just taught me "chatoyancy" by giving me a spelling to google, and redeemed the entire short in my mind, so thanks!
Hello everyone. You know how you got here. May I interest you in SCP-1471?
honestly always thought it was an attempt to kill trees in a situation where they couldn’t legally chop the tree down with paperwork but it would technically be considered pruning or something along those lines
If done at the wrong time of year it could definitely kill a tree so in some cases potentially
People used to used the thin pollard branches for tomato cages, woven fences and baskets
For certain kinds of trees it could be, and for even more if done at the wrong time it could be.
But for this specific kind of willow (knot-willow when directly translated from Dutch, dunno how it's called in English) it's common practice.
Partially because the branches of this are very flexible, thin, yet sturdy, which made them very useful and wanted. But also because it has been proven over centuries of doing this that it doesn't directly harm the tree if done right.
Actually, for this type of willow, the "pollarding" is necessary. This tree grows very quickly and is very flexible when young.
This means that if you were to let it grow naturally, without pruning, it would grow too tall, catch too much wind and eventually split off fat branches, wounding the tree. (trees can bleed out if this happens in summer when there's a lot of sap circulation) It could split right down the middle and die.
A fast growing tree is not strong, it can't take the wind. Casting off big branches in storms is normal if left intact, but it hurts the tree and is dangerous for us.
Good maintenance of a willow means cutting all branches off every two to three years. So all branches are young and flexible. This means the tree can grow old without risking wind damage.
It's a tree that sprouts new growth so easily, it can grow a whole new tree from a discarded branch. Just stick a bit of tree in the mud and voila, new willow.
Beautiful!! 😊 ❤
Pollarding is also done to provide food for sheep, cattle, goats or other animals in times of drought.
Trees may also look like this if they are cut back from powerlines to make sure they don't create a fire.
Blessings from South Eastern Australia, Dot
It was also done to provide a good source of young branches for wicker weaving
this is the second time this week I hear about pollarding in a youtube video. the first one was in Grian's Hermitcraft episode, I've never even heard this word before, what is going on?
ok. that's truly neat
For some reason, when it stopped spinning for the first time, I thought this guy had mistaken a giant prehistoric animal's lower jaw for wood. 💀
Wow. That piece of wood will definitely be functional for anything. Thank goodness you brought it to its full glory.
I learned this same thing yesterday from the Minecraft youtuber 'Grian' lmao
God's creations are neat
Bro just summoned a whole fandom with that one line 😂
Trees that are pollarded or coppiced (the same, but different) live longer than if they just lived out their natural lives. It's also a great way to get more sustainable firewood out of a given size of woodlot.
That turned out GORGEOUS!!! 🤎 🤎 🤎 Love it!!! 🤎 🤎 🤎
When done at ground level it’s called coppicing, both are used to generate lots of small branches for stakes and weaving etc but pollarding has the advantage of being too high for most herbivores to browse the shoots
We pollard our Hybrid Poplar trees (16] every other year or so. The poplar trees really send up some beautifully straight branches, some 15 long.
That piece has an incredible amount of character. You did awesome.
you should have added that it was done in the past to make wicker baskets from the branches. It wasn't done just for fun
The reason its traditionally done to willows is because all the long skinny braches can be used to make wicker products
I done woodwork at school and my hands nearly got obliterated using the lathe, it’s so scary 😭
Here in the south when it’s a crepe Myrtle we call it crepe murder.🤷🏻♀️
"As one does." Carving into a weird piece of wood😅
Oh so that's why the Whomping Willow looked like that!
At first it looked like you carved kt with a different tool 😏
And they suck to climb (I like to climb trees)
I absolutely hate this style of pruning.
Please, who got the Harry Potter referance😂😂😂
Does anyone else see a face in the final product?
Looks like a JJK item.
You call it Pollarding, i can it recovered treeline
They do that at my cousins old apartment
"Neat"
-everything
Ooga booga vibes
You better knot.
Make a chess
slightly dead tree in a very dead tree
American people don't know what's pollarding?? That's something that been around all my life in Brazil, my mom did it uncountable times to our trees. That's such a common thing
P o l l a r d i n g C h a t o y e n c y
Trees be getting a haircut
heh, knots
Incredible, one of the 9 total furry jokes lmao
@@muffinconsumer4431
Actually it's because ropes are really fricking tasty