i acquired this 'Hakuro Nishiki' willow (Salix integra 'Hakuro Nishiki') several years ago. It was a real find at the time - beautiful pink, green and white leaves, supposed to get about 4-5 feet tall, according to the info on the plant tag, so i found an appropriate spot to plant it (for a medium/small shrub).
Well, i think you can see by the photo that it did NOT stay quite that small! That is a 6 foot fence behind it! i'm tired of DH always asking me "Why did you plant such a large plant in such a small space?" "Well, DEAR, because it was not SUPPOSED to get that big!" That happens to me a lot - it's not that i don't read the tags or that i give my plants a lot of fertilizer - they just get big!
i do have it trained as a standard; however, it sprouts constantly from the trunk. This was taken 2 months ago, and is even larger now! At the Farmers Market this Spring, a nursery was selling tons of these cultivars, trained as petite, well behaved looking ( about a foot in diameter - HA!) standards, and i took it as my own personal responsibility to follow each person who purchased one and WARN them of the monster it may become! So if you run across one of these, i would not tell you to pass it up - it IS beautiful, after all - just make sure you can give it enough room (and don't believe the tag)!
