Do we dig up our willow dome?

Question

I work in a nursery and we have a living willow dome for the children to play inside. Unfortunately, the willow has sap coming out in places and this attracts wasps. Although the children love playing outside, a few of our children have wasp allergies and had to stay inside on some occasions. We are considering digging the whole thing up but I love plants and trees and hate this idea. I was looking at the different types of wood today and the main stems are hard and woody, old wood. The shoots that are growing off these are fresh new shoots, nice and green inside. If we cut back all the shoots and reduce some of the wood and structure, would this reduce the amount of sap? We could then grow some climbing plants up the dome.

Answer 1

Willow trees bleed sap if you prune them while they are actively growing, which is probably how the willow was harvested for the willow dome. Reducing the willow on your willow dome will reduce the amount of sap just because there is less willow there to bleed. However, it unfortunately won’t totally eliminate the sap and the wasps will still come if there is any amount of sap.