Willow Cuttings

November 2025

Two year old Packing Twine plant

I can provide a limited number willow cuttings to local folks (in Kansas) if you let me know before the end of December what you’d like. They are $2/stick (plus tax). Use the contact page to place an order, and we can communicate about how best to get them to you.

Update (1/12/26): Since I didn’t hear from anyone, I didn’t prepare any extra cuttings for other folks, but I still have some I could spare, especially Packing Twine, which has grown the absolute best for me.

If you want to grow basketry willows (as opposed to finding and harvesting wild willow, which tends to be scrappier and snappier), know that it is one of the easiest plants in the world to propagate. You just take a stick of live willow and stick it in the ground. Keep it watered, and keep the weeds away from it (I use mulch–either old hay or wood chips–and hand weed my willow, though most people use landscape cloth), and it will root and grow. Prepare the soil like you would before planting anything else (ie, get rid of perennial weeds and loosen up compacted soil). Willow needs full sun to grow the best.

I plant mine about a foot apart in rows with about two feet between rows. I usually plant my cuttings during warm week in February, though really anytime in the late winter through about April in Kansas is fine. Several months of cooler wetter weather gives them a good start. Cuttings I planted in December actually did fine too.

You want them close together so they grow up towards the sun rather than sprawling outwards. Each cutting will make two or three rods the first year, and then after cutting them back near the ground the following winter when they’re dormant, many more rods the next year. It takes about three years to become fully productive, but you’ll get plenty to weave with the second year (plus you can take your own cuttings to further propagate them). After the first year, they ought to be fine without any watering other than what comes down out of the sky.

Here’s the varieties I could make cuttings from:

Packing Twine: This is the variety that grows the absolute best at our farm, and what I’d recommend for anyone in Kansas. It is tall, slender, and dries a dark gray-green, and is fabulous for making baskets. I have some extras of these.

The rest of these have also done really well, and make LOTS of rods in Kansas conditions.

Dicky Meadows: A very common purpurea used for basketmaking. LOTS of long, slender rods that dry a dark red-brown. I could sell a small number of these.

Jagiellonka: Almost identical to Dicky Meadows. Both make a ton of long, slender rods that dry a dark brown-red. I could sell a small number of these.

Americana: Stockier rods than Dicky Meadows and Jagiellonka, but very productive. I could sell a small number of these.

Goldstones: Rods are supposed to dry a vibrant green, but I haven’t really noticed that. I could sell a small number of these.

Green Dicks: Very slender rods, very green. This one is a bit shorter than the other purpureas (and thus more vulnerable to weed competition, but if you can keep the weeds away, it’s a GREAT variety for weavers for baskets. No extra cuttings of these.

Natural Red: This is a fragilis cross that is super vigorous in good soil (with full sun). Rods are thick and strong, good for hoops for frame baskets, and spokes for big baskets. Dries a light reddish brown. I’ve also peeled bark from this variety to make bark baskets. I could sell a small number of these.

Curly Twist: This is a curly ornamental willow. I love bringing in cuttings for winter decoration. No extra cuttings of these.

Flame: This is super-vigorous, making thick branching rods. It’s a brilliant yellow in the fall and winter, so looks great in otherwise drab landscapes. It’s supposed to grow straighter and less branching after it gets older, but for me, it hasn’t in two years. I got it for yellow accents for baskets. I have some extras of these.

I have a lot of other varieties that I’m trialling, but I don’t yet have an abundance of them, but if you want just one or two cuttings of any of them, we could probably work that out. See the Willow Varieties page for all of them.