Flood defences: how willow became an all-natural defender

One December night few years ago, more rain fell over Cumbria than ever recorded before. Simon Peet’s farm in Langwathby, near Penrith, was one among 600 throughout the county that took a battering. Twenty of his Herdwick sheep drowned in the event the River Eden burst its banks, about 4km of fencing was destroyed and 5,000 a lot of gravel with the river ended up in a of his fields. The repair bill was