The second-coming of Donald Trump may only last a few more months, maybe a year, maybe four, and he’ll be gone. Unfortunately, he is accompanied by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They arrived ahead of him and will stay with us much longer: global heating, plastic pollution, ecosystem collapse and world famine. There is a 5th Horseman, but didn’t show up, he just stayed home, he’s playing that most ironically named game: “Call of Duty”.

Hi, I’m Duncan Zuill and welcome to the Willow Worlds podcast.

We are living through a climate crisis, a plastic pollution crisis, a mass extinction and a biodiversity collapse. Few of us are still living in denial, I think that ship has sailed. Yet when it comes to practical action: where is everybody? Where is everyone when there is a real call of duty?

Everyone should be panicking about the state of the planet, but few people are. Most of us are living in a strange bubble of bravery and apathy. Fortunately, our project is designed for success in areas of very brave apathy. That’s why I’m happy to tell you that we got on just fine this month - though I’m a bit late with this post, because well… I couldn’t be bothered. But…

We got it done. Nae bother.

Well, maybe there was just a wee bit of bother… I’d better tell you.

The building company ‘lost’ the 80 tonnes of topsoil they said they would donate. The last-minute solutions to the problem failed leaving us with the prospect of planting trees in manure. Also, climate events all over Fife clashed with our Willow Worlds planting weekend. On Friday, we had only one ticket sold and then of course, there were the Yellow Weather Warnings. The usual adversities, in other words. But we had to take delivery of the willow and we also had to plant it, because we had nowhere to store it. And as Rob Eves, our willow expert was recovering from major shoulder surgery he would do very little lifting but attend as a consultant in an advisory capacity… and then we ran out of wooden stakes. And it was nae bother really.

We had 6 adults and 7 children on the day, and, to my surprise that was enough.

We had Alex House the volunteer, Rob Eves bringing the willow, tree surgeon Fergus Morrison (as Rob’s assistant) and 3 Bat’s Wood committee members: myself, Ken Haig and Sam Green. 7 children were also helping, some whom had also helped on the soil preparation day.

Willow Worlds landed just fine on the day because planting was quick and easy:

Here’s what we learned:

1. With a nice soft soil, see December’s post, willow fedge is very easy to plant. In fact, 6 adults can plant 90 metres in 3 circles in 4 hours (6 adults x 4 hours = 24 worked-hours). Planting 1200 trees, in an artistic and useful installation is - very fast.

2. We learned what to do when we run out of stakes - we coppice more willow trees. We were 18 stakes short but we solved this by cutting what we needed from Bat’s Wood, this saved us £180 and delays. The off-cuts from this work went into Rob’s trailer to feed the giraffes in Edinburgh Zoo. This was cost-free, plastic-free and zero-waste - it’s ticking all the sustainability boxes!

3. If we had had significant numbers of volunteers, as unlikely as that sounds, we’d have needed another environmental activity or two to occupy them. This could have been planting native trees inside the circles, removing litter or tidying derelict tree guards nearby. The willow fedge doesn’t need lots of people involved.

4. The transformative effect of planting Willow Worlds is several orders of magnitude greater than a new stand of whips in tree guards. This was an immensely satisfying day.

5. We still think willow rods replacing the tree guards makes a lot of sense, environmentally speaking.

6. Willow Worlds, or more simply, willow enclosures, represents an interesting addition to community tree planting efforts.

These are tentative conclusions at the moment, the willows of this project have not yet started to grow. But at the time of writing, the installed fedge circles are successfully planted and likely to thrive in their prepared soil enriched with cow manure. The research question we began with was: “could willow be used to form an alternative to tree guards in lowland Scotland where there is overgrazing from roe deer?” We think that we can say ‘yes’ to this but we also have the additional quesiton about how such installations exist with the communities in which they are planted. We aim to find this out as the roots start to take hold in the apathetic turpitude of Muiredge Park.

Alex, our sole volunteer, was quite taken by the installations, calling them “the world’s biggest baskets”. We can say for sure that Willow Worlds was very interesting and positively recieved by someone who came expecting simply to plant trees. However, volunteers at environmental events can be expected to have a positive bias. What about the people living next to the Willow Worlds? We aim to find this out somehow, because to be truly sustainable, it has to be agreeable to those who see the project from the windows of their homes and when they are out walking the dog.

But no curtains were seen to twitch, only one person asked what we were doing. We might be waiting a long time to hear what the locals think about the Willow Worlds. We may come to the conclusion that nobody thinks about the Willow Worlds. We may have to think about other ways that a place can think about Willow Worlds.

How can we think about a place thinking about Willow Worlds?

I want a way of answering this question in simple words.

I’ll try to answer this question in the next post here on the Willow Worlds Podcast.

After the planting event, I had a quiet conversation with Rob Eaves of Auldgate Willow and tree surgeon Fergus Morrison, diving deeper into the world of willow. The wind had played havoc with my recording, so instead, I’ll share some of the things we talked about—the kind of details that stick in your mind long after the conversation ends.

Rob’s journey with willow began in 2008, after a basket weaving course changed the course of his life. What started as a craft quickly became a business, and eventually, Auldgate Willow took root. He spoke about the willow trees with a kind of quiet admiration, describing them as something both beautiful and practical—a rare balance of artistry and ecological purpose. Fergus, newer to the world of willow, was struck by its efficiency. “You just cut it and replant it,” he said, almost in disbelief. A tree that wants to be useful, over and over again.

Rob grows and supplies Salix viminalis, a tough, mildew-resistant basket willow. It’s seasonal work—no planting happens during the growing months—but its uses are as varied as they are surprising. Of course, there’s basketry and cricket bats, fencing, charcoal, even animal feed. But then the conversation took a turn toward the unexpected. Willow, it turns out, is woven into riverbanks at scale to prevent erosion. Willow made the seats of Spitfire planes. It even forms the light, flexible cores inside the bearskin hats of the Coldstream Guards. Something about that stuck with me: a tree both delicate and resilient, working its way into history in ways few would ever suspect.

I asked them whether Willow Worlds still felt viable after years of involvement. Could it scale up? Could it spread? Fergus was certain more people should know about willow fedge—a living fence that most people wouldn’t even consider. The challenge, he admitted, is maintenance. Like any hedge, it needs a yearly trim. But perhaps the cuttings themselves could find a use.

Coppiced willow, when cut just six inches above the ground, erupts into long, straight rods by May—nature’s own renewal cycle. As we walked among the young trees, we realized some had been cut a little too low, and we’d have to see how they fared. We laughed about how we weren’t quite self-sufficient yet—still dependent on Rob’s willow supply. Maybe next year, we said. Maybe next year.

That’s all for now, thanks for listening to the Willow Worlds Podcast. See you next time, there’s still a lot of willow to grow.

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