Where it all started

Many years ago, as a child stuck indoors while on a wet family holiday in Wales, I was reduced to reading an Enid Blyton book - which my father would never have allowed in our home - but was luckily on the bookshelf in the holiday place.

The book was Enid Blyton's "The Secret Island" and in the book the runaway children constructed a shelter from willow wands, thrust into the earth and woven together, that then sprouted and made a 'living' house.

The idea of sticks broken from a tree being able to turn into trees themselves by just by being pushed into the ground captured my imagination and I loved the idea of being able to make a green living structure in such a simple way.

In following years I tried several times to replicate the process but oddly enough, weeping willow twigs pushed into hard summer earth of our back garden, never gave the desired results .