Willow Flower Support

Flower supports are used to prop up plants that have large flower heads to stop them from drooping or can be use to allow climbers like peas to climb up. This makes plant supports a must have for anyone growing flowers or vegetables. This simple flower support is made using willow that has been soaked or freshly cut.

- 8 Thick willow rods for Stakes (roughly two meters).
- 12 thinner Rods for weaving (roughly two meters).

- 1-2 Very Thin Rods (For tiying knots)
- 1 plant pot full of soil (the size can be of your choosing I used a 30cm diameter one) If you are scaling this up you will need to allow for more willow.
- A pair of secateurs

Take eight of the willow rods and push them down into the plant pot at equal spacing all the way round the edge. I think of a clock face, starting from 12 to 3, 6 and 9 then placing the remaining in between my 4 main ones.

Make sure you leaving around 1.8 meters sticking out of the soil.

These stakes are the support for the three rod wale (a weaving technique) around the base in order to hold the whole structure in place.

Once the stakes are laid out at equal spacing from each other, we can now do some weaving.

To start a three rod wale

Start with butt ends (thickness part of the rod), take 3 rods and place each behind 3 consecutive stakes. Approximately 10cm of your ends should point out to your left and the rest of the rod will be pointing to your right.

Take the left most rod and weave it over two stakes, under the next one and back out. Repeat this action on your other 2 rods, keep going until you nearly run out of rod (around 30cm left). Ensure you tap your weave down as you go to keep it tight.

Now you need to weave the next set in.

To do this you will get a new rod and insert it in behind the old rod, make sure to start with the tip end first. You should push it into the weave till the tip end is resting behind the stake to its left (always join tip to tip or but to but).

Follow the same process on the 2 and 3rd rods, once you have your new set in, go back to weaving the same as the above step.

Keep adding rods until you have weaved all 12 rods into the weave.

In this step we are going to tidy up the lose end.

Once you are happy with your three rod whale, we need tidy the base up.

We are going to go around the three rod whale and cut off any willow ends that are sticking out.

This is easy done by getting your secateurs and angling them diagonal against the willow to make a nice clean cut, go around the whole 3 rod wale till you have a no willow sticking out and it looks like the photo above.

Now we have tidied everything up, it is time to tie in the stakes into the wale.

To tie the stakes in simply bend down the stake until you reach the wale and weave the stake tip in between the whale. The stake should hold its self once weaved.

I have designed a simple pattern to follow but feel free to do your own thing and choose where to position them, its totally up to you.

To make my pattern simply take a stake and bend it to the right, miss a stake then insert it into the base of the next take and weave it in between the wale, do this again to the next stake and repeat until you have complete all the stakes.

We now have the main work done and it should start to look good.

We just need to secure the stake into where we have positioned them, this is done by using the off cuts of willow or the thinnest rods you have left.

Simply take a thin off cut of willow and make a knot around the two stakes that meet and poke the ends inside the knot until no willow is sticking out.

Once you have done this to all the stakes that meet, cut off any bits that might be sticking out.

Now it is time to remove the support from the pot.

To remove the support, pull the stakes up out of the soil until they came free be sure to hold the canes below the weave (This is easier with another person to help). Alternatively you can keep it in the pot and plant your flowers or vegetables into the pot.

I chose to take mine out of the pot and place it over my peony in my garden.

Finished Thoughts.

I really love the way this plant support just blends into my garden and will provide lots of support for my peony.

I enjoyed working with the natural material which I know can be recycled again and again.This project is fun and easy and will help your flower blossom into beauty.

I hope you have found my instructable helpful and have a go at making a plant support for yourself.

Thank you