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This tree started life with me taking a cold early morning walk to a park in Merton with some concave cutters in my back pocket
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I took a cutting of this lovely weeping willow tree. I then stuck it in water with the cutting threaded through some styrofoam to help it just float and keep the bottom half submerged
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Roots formed and I eventually potted it up. Since then it has been allowed to grow unchecked all year. In each winter I cut it back hard
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In the end of the spring I always go through the tree and cut back new growth
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but more importantly I try and get rid of any problems Willows bud back like crazy
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and you'll find spots that have three or four shoots coming from the same place
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these need to be removed if they're left all season they'll form big knots and wreck any taper you have on your branches
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You will also find a lot of downward and inward facing branches so get rid of these as well
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I'm also cutting back each shoot to two or three pairs of leaves to build up ramification and promote backbutting
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By the end of the pruning it should be left with a decent structure and then that can be left to grow for the rest of the year
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You can also see the tree is slanted over. It seemed to get knocked over in transit from London, so that'll have to be correct
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at next spring. As you can see the work done at the end of spring has caused the tree to explode with back buds
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I can go through and remove any buds I don't need, like circled here
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These are two buds coming from the same place. If they're left alone, it will grow and thicken and look awful
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As I'm trying to thicken the trunk, I'm not too worried about a lot of the buds, so I'll leave most of the
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let them grow out for a few weeks and then cut any major issues such as the two from the same spot
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By end the summer it's grown out quite a lot, which will have helped thicken everything up
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We will see what's happened properly once the leaves all fall off
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