Pussy Willow

This past week we started harvesting pussy willow. Once we find a bluff that looks promising we strap on our snowshoes and walk in to take a closer look. We are very selective and prune the shrubs so they will produce new shoots for next year.

At this time of year the catkins are not fully open yet, so we place them in buckets of water in a warm garage. If you keep them in the water too long, they will progress to the pollen stage. Once they are at a certain stage we take them out of the water and prune off any dead branches and bundle them up for sales. We create tall bundles for large vases and shorter bundles for smaller tabletop vases.

Bundled pussy willow branches ready for sale.