Keeping willows low by pollarding?

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Hi everybody.

Complete beginner gardener here. :)
My boyfriend and I are buying a house, with a garden that's very open to the outside world and not simple to make more private. It's right at the foot of a slope, down from a street, so a fence wouldn't work, because it would have to be impossibly tall for people not to be able to look straight over it. At the same time the garden is very wet, because of soil that doesn't drain particularly well and high ground water, so generally hedge plants will not happily grow there as far as I can understand. So I was looking into other options and am now wondering if we could solve the problem with a row of pollarded willow trees? If we plant little willow trees and wait for them to reach the desired height (they'd still be very young), would it be possible to keep them permanently at 3-3,5 meters (10-12 feet) by pollarding? So they would block the view to the street, keeping the crowns at eye height from people passing by, and not get tall enough to shade the entire, pretty small, garden.
I realize the trees wouldn't have crowns for a part of the year, but that would be in the winter, so not when we'd be wanting to have dinner in the garden or lie around in bathing suits anyway.
If not pollarded trees, do you have another idea for how to close off the garden instead? The slope down from the street is 1-1.5 meters (4-5 feet) high. The plants would have to be at the foot of the slope, because that's where the garden starts. The slope itself is public, not ours. Since the garden is small it shouldn't be something too wide.
We're in Denmark, so the climate is mild. It doesn't get very cold or very hot.

Thank you.
 
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This guy does that all the time, but not with willow trees. He's kind of a strange guy (eccentric), but he knows his stuff when it comes to gardening and growing trees.



 
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Thanks for the recommendation. I've had a look already and found some helpful videos that I need to re-watch a couple of times. Do you think I can do just the same with a not-fruit tree as he does with fruit ones? I imagine it's just the same...
 
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I don't know, I don't deal with trees much, but it can't hurt to experiment, unless of course you spent a ton of money on the tree, than I can see being a little more concerned with experimentation.

I think I remember watching a gardening show that basically said that one can make a bonsai tree out of any species. So, it seems like you could pollard a willow tree enough to keep it around 3-meters high....I would guess:unsure:

BTW, I do wonder how planting 3 moringa trees in one hole would keep the height down some. I'm trying to germinate a bunch of seeds, so I may try it this year. No money loss if it's a big failure:ROFLMAO:
 
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I don't know, I don't deal with trees much, but it can't hurt to experiment, unless of course you spent a ton of money on the tree, than I can see being a little more concerned with experimentation.

I think I remember watching a gardening show that basically said that one can make a bonsai tree out of any species. So, it seems like you could pollard a willow tree enough to keep it around 3-meters high....I would guess:unsure:

BTW, I do wonder how planting 3 moringa trees in one hole would keep the height down some. I'm trying to germinate a bunch of seeds, so I may try it this year. No money loss if it's a big failure:ROFLMAO:

No, willows aren't expensive at all. So the only issue is that, to my understanding, it's quite a hassle to get them back out of the ground if they've become too big! :ROFLMAO:
I will find a way.
Good luck on your 3-in-a-hole project. Interesting experiment!
 

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