Diary: unearthing a little history about the Kilmarnock willow

Ask me this time last week what I knew of Kilmarnock, and I would have trotted out that it gave rise to an edition of the poetry of Robert Burns, that it plays host to a fine football team which won the Scottish league in 1965, and even the rather obscure fact that Kilmarnock played a part in the early development of the bicycle.

All this I knew, if a little fuzzily – and I might even, depending on which way the wind was blowing, have mentioned that a couple of decades ago I had cause to make a few visits to the Ayrshire town for that most Burnsian of reasons, the pursuit of a woman. But even as recently as a week ago, I had no idea of another Kilmarnock factlet: that there is a type of willow tree named in its honour. That arboreal ignorance, however, was about to be cleared up courtesy of one of those odd happy coincidences which come along from time to time. Two winters ago – the first of the really cold ones – an old shrubby conifer in the garden here in Stirling photosynthesised its last and turned brown over the subsequent summer. My better half (who, it should be stressed, is not from Kilmarnock) and I planned to dig it out and insert a replacement, possibly a miniature maple. But the evil day of digging was repeatedly postponed and the dead conifer was still clogging up a corner of the garden late last week.

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Then neighbours just along the road started a wholesale revamp of their own front garden, which included the uprooting of a neat and very healthy-looking miniature weeping willow. This was seen tipped on its side one day as we walked by, so we asked if it was available for rehoming and were told yes, by all means please take it. The means proved to be a wheelbarrow, the tree was rather awkwardly transported the short distance from their garden to ours (a Wide Load plate would have come in handy), and so began a weekend of belatedly digging out the old dead wood and replacing it with the green shoots of the willow. Anyone who has ever tried to completely remove a shrub or bush will know that it’s not trivial, and so it was with ours: more than three-quarters of the time spent on the whole old tree / new tree process was devoted to getting the old roots removed, using a mixture of forks, shovels, loppers and far more brute strength than bargained for over the course of a sunny weekend. There was a sense of urgency, however – all the while, the replacement tree was lying alongside, on its side, with wet towels draped over its exposed-to-the-air root system. We needed to get it into the ground, fed and watered, sooner rather than later – and this was finally achieved on Sunday, by which stage the hole had reached building-site proportions (and had – predictably – started to be used as a toilet by one of the cats). The new tree was duly manoeuvred into position (and as advised by some book or other, we built a little mound under the centre of the root-ball, to provide stability and to allow the water to drain right round), we removed the old dead underbranches, applied lashings of compost and bone meal, and reburied the roots so that – eventually – the tree stopped shoogling and stood reasonably upright and stable. Then we had a cup of tea and a piece of cake, and set about trying to discover exactly what kind of tree it was. We knew it was a willow, and pretty small – no more than a metre-and-a-half high – but beyond that, to use a sort of tree-related term, we were stumped. Eventually, after searching in Google Images, we reckoned it was Salix caprea, commonly known as the Kilmarnock willow. (There was an irony in this: the house from which it came is called Willow Lodge. Not any more, it ain’t.) We still weren’t sure, however – plus I was interested in the Kilmarnock connection – so a couple of experts were asked for their thoughts. “Salix caprea is the common goat willow or pussy willow which is found widely throughout the country,” said Richard Kay, director of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society, on being shown photographs of the tree. “The variant Salix caprea ‘Kilmarnock’ is a dwarf horticultural cultivar probably developed by Thomas Lang of Kilmarnock as a weeping variety in 1853. He probably developed it from unusual wild specimens giving the desired form. “You will have to be careful to ensure that there is no suckering or adventitious growth from the lower stem, or you will lose the form.” George Anderson, of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society, agreed: “It very much looks like you have indeed acquired a Kilmarnock willow,” he said. “Because of its size, I suspect that the plant will die back a bit before it starts to grow. Never mind how much care we take with trying to preserve a good root system on plants we move this way, the root system is reduced to about 20 per cent or even less of the original total. “The plant will need to be well watered in its new home and securely staked to prevent the root ball from moving as it tries to root into the surrounding soil. Prune out some of the old dead wood from the underside of the canopy as well, so that you reduce the wind pressure on the head of the plant. Keep watering even after it starts into growth, so that the new roots can take up all the necessary water. “It can be prone to Salix Rust, which shows as rust-coloured spots/pustules on the leaves. This is a common disorder and there is little that you can do to control it other than collect and destroy as many infected leaves as possible. I think that it is often systemic in the plant and so it is pretty immune to any preventative sprays you might apply.” There appears to be some confusion as to whether the tree is male or female – but the short, bulbous shape of the emerging catkins seem to suggest that it’s a male. The female version has longer, more chunky catkins. So a lot has been learnt over the course of a few short (well, long in terms of the digging) days. Now the main practical question isn’t what sex it is, or which bit of Scotland it originates from, but simple survival: will it take to its new home? At present, the little dome-shaped tree looks to be doing OK, but it will be a while before we’re sure, and there might be problems should there be a big gale at some stage over the next month or two – although it is in quite a sheltered, south-east-facing spot. One thing’s for sure, though – if we ever decide to uproot ourselves and move to Kilmarnock, we’re not taking it with us.

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