Scarlet Willow, Large Trees

Salix alba Britzensis: Bareroot Coral Bark Willow Trees in Standard Sizes

The Coral Bark or Scarlet Willow tree, Salix alba Britzensis has fantastic, yellow, red and orange young branches for a great winter display.
This Willow can reach a height of about 20 metres, but is usually pollarded to encourage new growth.

Browse our variety of willow trees or our full range of garden trees.

The trees on this page are delivered as large standards, suitable for pollarding at a height of about 2-3 metres. If you want a lower plant, or to prune it as a coppiced shrub, use our sapling Scarlet Willows.

Delivery season: Willow trees are delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.
Choosing a size: Small trees are cheaper, easier to handle and more forgiving of less than ideal aftercare, so they are best for a big planting project. If instant impact is your priority, or if you are only buying a few plants for use in a place where it is convenient to water them well in their first year, then you may as well use bigger ones. All our bareroot trees are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Features:

• Height: 20m
• Soil: Loves wet soil in full sun
• Fabulous red-orange bark on new stems
• Responds well to hard pruning
• Bareroot delivery only: November-March

Growing Willows

Willows thrive best on wet soil in full sun, ideally beside water, but really are not fussy as long they have enough light. This species likes chalk.

They respond well to pruning, and are perfect for coppicing and pollarding.

Notes on planting Red Willow trees:
This tree loves damp, fertile, acidic soil and will probably suffer on chalk. It needs full sun.

Prepare your site before planting:
It is good to dig over the site where you plant a tree several months in advance. Kill the weeds first: for tough weeds like nettles, brambles and ground elder, you will usually need a weed-killer to get rid of them. When you dig the soil over, remove stones and other rubbish and mix in well rotted compost or manure down to the depth of about 2 spades.

Watch our video on how to plant a tree for full instructions.
Remember to water establishing trees during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

Tree Planting accessories:
Prepare your site for planting by killing the weeds and grass.
You can buy a tree planting pack with a wooden stake & rubber tie to support the tree and a mulch mat with pegs to protect the soil around the base of your tree from weeds and drying out.
We suggest that you use mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of all newly planted large trees: if your soil quality is poor, we strongly recommend it.
You can also improve your soil with bonemeal organic fertiliser.

Did You Know?

This tree's parent, Salix alba, is native in Britain, and it was raised in Britz, Germany by Ludwig Späth (1793-1883) in 1878. Its new stems look a lot like Cornus sibirica. It is sometimes sold as Chermesina, which is a different but very similar variety.

Standard trees are measured by their girth in centimetres 1 metre above ground level: their trunk's waist measurement. Unlike sapling trees and hedge plants, standards aren't measured by their height, which will vary quite a bit both between and within species.
So, a 6/8cm standard tree has a trunk with a circumference of 6-8cm and an 8/10 standard has a trunk 8-10cm around. This measurement makes no difference to the tree's final height.
On average, standard trees are 2-3.5 metres tall when they arrive, but we cannot tell you precisely how tall your trees will be before we deliver them.