Plant Pussywillows in Your Garden

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By: Kim Willis
The pussywillow is loved by children and is often used in spring floral arrangements, both dried and fresh. The pussies are actually the male flowers, called catkins, which open in early spring before the leaves appear. Native Pussy Willows are usually bushy shrubs that grow in wet areas, but you don't have to go out searching for them in a ditch full of cold water. You can grow Pussy Willow in almost any garden.
Choosing varieties
The native North American shrub willows all produce furry catkins to some extent, but for impressive large catkins, plant French Pussy Willow, Salix caprea. Pussy Willow flowers come in soft shades of gray, but they also come in black, Salix melanostachys, and pink, Salix chaenomeloides, Mt. Also. Salix apoda from Eurasia has a ground-hugging habit with showy, large catkins of orange and pink in early spring. Most varieties sold as Pussy Willows in catalogs and nurseries will be male plants.
There is a wonderful small Weeping Pussy Willow tree, Salix caprea, Pendula, that has huge, furry gray catkins cascading down its stems in the early spring. After the catkins are gone, it's graceful weeping form still creates interest. It makes an excellent specimen plant or the focal point of a perennial bed.

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