Four years old and 25ft tall: our willow maze

Up and up and up! The River Field's willow maze is entering its fifth growing season and at 25+ feet, it's certainly come a long way from its humble beginnings as 18 inch sticks. We've taken out a lot of the heavy wood to stop the sides toppling over (once dry, this is perfect for bbqing on) and made arches with what's left to increase canopy cover and prevent long grasses from taking over the understory. It's fairly heavy work at times - some of the branches are too big to get your hand around and pretty inflexible, so I had to do my best three-toed sloth impression and hang off them to convince them to bend, but we're getting there! More to do of course, but that's the fun.

A hand-woven tunnel inside the maze

At the centre is an old cattle feeder turned on its side. The willow is being woven into it to make a kind of 'pod' - this summer I'll put in a hammock.

All this is a very different picture to when we first planted the maze five years ago with twigs of willow 18" high…