Here’s a small example of the seventeen weed pots that we made from, what we call, weed trees. They make for a very decorative flower arrangement when weeds, or in this case, dried flowers are put in them. We made them for a spring craft show and they were well received.
We call the trees ‘weed tree’s because they grow like weeds, adding several feet a year to their height.
We believe that the wood is a variety of buckthorn called Glossy Buckthorn. It grows on a corner of our property and as it is very invasive we have been cutting it’s progress down for years. One day we threw a piece on the lathe and discovered this beautiful, pinkish orange heartwood. Now, instead of cutting and burning the wood we harvest it. Our first ‘cash crop’. 😉
Here’s a couple of more photos:
Back to the shop…
Joe van Keulen
I would like to know from the person who did the “weed pots for spring” . Did he turn the pieces “green” and dried them or did he dry the wood first and then turn them? What do you do to keep the bark from falling off?
Great little project very nice.
Thanks for showing us Joe.
Woodworker's Guide
Joe, in this case I dried the wood first. I have done others where I partially turned to speed up the drying process. To keep the bark from falling off you should cut your wood in late fall or winter after the sap stops running. Hope this helps.