Just thought I`d throw up an update pic and confirm this is Salix `Boydii`. A little from the web below:
"A very slow-growing shrub forming tiny, gnarled, upright bushes clothed in grey, felted leaves. An absolute gem. Small and dwarf enough for growing in a trough, for a few years at least, then can be transferred to the garden to mature. Even the naked branches and buds look nice in winter and it will produce little catkins in spring. Can eventually reach about 40" high (1m) but only after many, many years."
"Salix 'Boydii' is a rare natural hybrid and has been found only once in a glen in the Cairngorms, Scotland by Dr. Boyd in the 1890s."
"Salix x boydii
Like most rock gardeners I grow a few small willows. Being Scottish I was entranced by the story behind one of my favourite willows, Salix x boydii, that hybrid found in Victorian times in Glen Fiagh near Glen Clova in Angus, by the late [very late] Dr William Boyd. I think his friends probably called him Bill - Bill Boyd, the doctor who liked plants. He must have 'had a good eye' to have spotted this unique seedling, a female apparently. Just think how grand her brothers would be if he could have found them. With willows and birds, the males are often the more spectacular. Young plants have nice golden stems in winter. The catkins will appear in April or May. Old plants have a gnarled appearance and can look as if the have braved a millennium of winters.
Current thought is that Salix x boydii is a hybrid between Salix lanata and Salix reticulata. S. lapponum and S. herbacea have also been though at one time or another too have played a part. There seems no doubt that Salix reticulata is one of its parents. I don't grow Salix lapponum but have plants of the others. My Salix lanata is a big plant now and forms a screen at the top of my west facing slope. It came from the nursery owned by the late James Aitken of Perth, who lived just uphill from Branklyn garden. Mr Aitken was a keen hill walker who had unparallel knowledge of Scotland's mountain plants. I have little doubt that my S. lanata can trace its origins to plants of the Perthshire hills. It is easy to propagate by cuttings. I love the big catkins which will soon appear with its felty silver leaves. Conservationists are fencing off and replanting Salix lanata on Ben Lawers."
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