I have a willow just like that, and planted another one at another property I used to own. It was obvious that both of mine were growing toward light, and although they don't appear to have overhead shade, they are shaded to one side by a much larger tree and it blocks the sun on some branches during parts of the day. Are you sure you aren't having that situation?

DID MY TREE HAVE A GENDER CHANGE PROCEDURE WITHOUT ME KNOWING?🤔🌳 I'm having the same willow tree white fluff problem here in New Orleans. I bought my house in 2011, with a huge willow tree in the backyard already there. It's a very large tree, so must be fairly old, but until this year it NEVER produced this AWFUL WHITE FLUFF,🌨 not until ABOUT 1 MONTH AGO-May 2024!) The white cottony fluff is attached to the seeds and floats out ALL OVER, looking like snow. I can't even go out back without breathing the stuff in, and it's at its worse from midday until dusk.🥺 I can't afford the nearly $1,000 to have the tree cut down (I'm retired, living on disablity alone👵🏻.) I know my poor neighbors are suffering with this stuff, from my backyard right into their front yards!😾 Why did this suddenly start happening after I've been living with this willow tree in my yard for 13 years?! Only thing that changed is, last summer we had a bad DROUGHT and it was extremely HOT every day. Anyway, the suggestions/answers to Mark's post here are not answers, they just say "plant a male tree next time." Well, I wouldn't have planted a willow tree at all, but it was already here and already massive with a big double trunk. Are GARDEN GAL and KEN suggesting that my tree is SUPER WOKE and had a sex change operation? How else do y'all tree experts propose that this just happened for the first time? Anyway, the tree isn't even healthy, 🤒 and the tree man said it SHOULD be removed because it's not well. However, it just keeps growing and EXPANDING. 🤷🏻‍♀️ But WHY is it SUDDENLY attacking us (me, my dogs, the neighbors) with the dreaded white fluff?! I really just want to at least understand what's making it doing this; I mean I've never done anything to this willow that might make it want to attack me in such a way! 😇 HELP!!!!!! 🏃🏻‍♀️🌨❄️🌿🌳🆘

Those are burls and can be very common with willows. Burls are a type of growth where the wood grain forms in a deformed manner and typically show as a rounded, knobby growth on the trunk or limbs. Causes are varied but they are not generally know to cause damage to the tree they appear on. Large burls tend to be very sought after by woodworkers for the stunning patterns they exhibit. Just an FYI but willows are known to be prone to a whole slew of disease and insect problems as well as weak wood that can cause limb drop or splitting. The decline you are seeing could be a reflection of one or more of those problem as well as just a sign of old age.

Not a large weeping willow at all, it is genetically programmed to grow vastly larger than it is now. And since the main point of it is the long trailing branches having a bunch going on beneath it that will conflict physically and visually with these hanging streamers it would in fact be best to remove all the stuff you have in there now and grass the whole bed over. At least until the tree is much taller with a much more elevated crown. Right now it is still too low and small to be in a bed full of other objects. Especially that one upright growing shrub that sticks way up into the crown of the willow, producing a visual conflict of movement (branches of willow pointing down, branches of shrub pointing up) as well as an actual physical conflict where the growth of the two plants is colliding.