A drab winter’s day at RHS Wisley in Surrey was recently livened up by this striking willow – Salix alba var. vitellina ‘Britzensis’. The orange-red stems radiated away from the low trunk providing a sheaf of colour that was reflected in the water beyond. The water bank is a favourite setting for many willows and the Latin salix actually means near (sal) water (lis).

However, there are 300 species in all and they vary from tall, weeping trees to very compact shrubs. Not all like water. Some, like Salix lanata, need well-drained alpine conditions. But the ones grown for winter interest tend to like moisture and their colourful, stems look magnificent reflected in still water.

But it is the new growth that is vibrant. As the stems age they fade – such is life. There are two techniques for encouraging virginal, new growth. Some willows can be stooled (cut back to the ground), while others are pollarded (cut back to the trunk). Stems need removing on a yearly basis to keep the wands of colour fresh. But this regime only begins once the plant has had three years or so to establish.

Willow bark and leaves have been used to cure pain for centuries. In 400 BC Hippocrates was prescribing leaves for women in childbirth. The Doctrine of Signatures (a 16th-century herbal system largely discredited) predicted that willow would relieve aches and pains caused by damp weather.

In 1763 the Rev Edward Stone, of Chipping Norton, famously gave dried willow bark to 50 parishioners suffering from rheumatic fever. He gathered strips of bark from White willows (Salix alba) growing close to the church. Some still grow there. The bark must have helped because Edward Stone wrote the first scientific description of the effects of willow bark. In 1763 he wrote a letter to the Earl of Macclesfield, then president of the Royal Society in London, in which he describes treating patients suffering from ague (fever) with 20 grains (approximately a gram) of powdered willow bark in a dram of water every four hours.

The active ingredient in willow bark is salicylic acid, the basis for aspirin. But aspirin only appeared in tablet form in 1897 when Bayer’s Felix Hoffmann developed and patented a process for synthesising acetyl salicylic acid or aspirin.

I haven’t chewed the bark or eaten the leaves. But a pollarded willow is a graceful addition to a larger garden. The shoots slant away from the trunk, like flowers arranged in a vase. The orange stems of ‘Britzensis’ (pictured) are a named form of the White willow (Salix alba). But some others also have coloured wood and the Violet willow, S. daphnoides, produces stems with a waxy blue bloom. The silky pussy willow buds look wonderful against them.

Gloucestershire-based the Willow Bank (www.thewillowbank.com/01594 861782) can supply cuttings, withies and advice. If you’re very serious visit www.wondertree.co.uk for a full list of willows with coloured stems.