Blue Leaf Arctic Willow

×
bare-root plants
$20.00
Item: 7614-A
Salix purpurea ‘Nana’

3-5' x 3-6' Selection of Purple Osier.

Small narrow blue foliage (actually greenish above and blue beneath) and delicate thin long red or green stems on a medium-sized spreading shrub. The graceful thin stems sucker, layer and form a thick and highly attractive ornamental mass.

Long cultivated and coppiced for a fine-textured basketmaking material. Excellent bank or hedge plant, especially in wet areas but also quite suitable for a highly visible location. We’ve seen it looking great in a perennial bed. If it gets overgrown, cut it to the ground every couple of years and it’ll come right back. Native Europe to North Africa to Japan. Z3.

(12")

BACK!
ships in spring
Shipping

Items from our perennial plants warehouse ordered on or before February 20 will ship from March through early May, starting with warmer areas and finishing in colder areas.

Orders placed after February 20 will ship from late April through early-to-mid May.

Additional Information

Small Trees and Shrubs

As Green’s Nursery catalog from 1904 explains, “There are many trees that by pruning can be made to resemble shrubs, and many shrubs that by different pruning may be made to produce medium-sized trees.”

Willows Salix spp.

The genus Salix comprises hundreds of different species of plants most commonly called willows but sometimes called Osier or Sallow. Willows grow all over the world. Some, like the weeping willow, are towering specimens. Others are short scrubby bushes; willows growing in the arctic can be 100 years old but only 2' tall! Uses include ornamental landscaping, shade, basketmaking, erosion control, timber, fuel and medicine. All parts, especially the bark, contain salicin, used for relief of pain and fever for hundreds, or even thousands, of years. Aspirin is a synthetic analog of salicin. Willows feed local wildlife, insects and birds. We plant them near the orchard to provide early season forage for our native pollinators. All prefer sun and loamy wet soils, but are adaptable, easily transplanted and fast growing.