"Because it can make for an incredibly boring, cookie cutter landscape!" I disagree. The world is full of plants for any particular zone. If you eliminate the invasive ones, the ones with peculiar "health problems" and the ones the homeowner just doesn't want, you still have a big palette of plants. I can tell you that as a homeowner, I have nothing that needs constant care near the house, and no way can my place be described as "cookie cutter". In fact, I think the opposite is true, because when a homeowner asks for something white or silver near the home, all the consultants run for a Salix integra. I know they are easy to find and guarantee work for the following year, but maybe a variegated Weigela or a Silver Leaf Dogwood or some other small plant would do. I can point out 10 houses with a willow for that whitish effect around here, and not a single other plant. I also pass a couple houses where the landscape has been allowed to "mature" because of changing circumstances, and these willows are big and rank. Circumstances change, plant growth patterns don't. If you plant a tree that needs constant pruning near the foundation, and you sell the house, the new homeowners have to continue to prune or rip it out. Or if a job disappears and with that goes the budget for your gardening help, what do you do? Or if the kids grow up and move out, your time is now spent mowing rather than pruning. Add to that the accumulation of years, and you can either keep pruning or sell the house. So far as needing a vigorous plant to invade a crack in the foundation. Here's one story. My buddy bought a split level with room on the north side for a garage. The basement had been clubbed, but the paneling etc. was at the end of its life. He decided to cut through the foundation to make a door to the new walk out garage. (Sloping ground about 25ft. outside that end allowed for a ground level entrance once the garage was added.) It turns out there was a small crack in his block foundation. It had been hidden by some boxwood shrubs on the outside and the interior wall on the inside. The roots of the boxwood (not a species known for aggressive roots) had almost filled the space behind the studs where the insulation was. The crack was only about 5 or 6 blocks tall, maybe 1/4 inch wide at the widest. Still, the roots were there. Not saying they were threatening anybody's health or anything, just saying that given enough time, small roots can build and build and build.

Its hard to say for sure. In the area where all the leaves are brown, scrap the stem and see if its green underneath. If its brown, prune that stem down to the ground. Clean the tool with alchol or bleach, just in case it some type of disease. Its more than likely transplanting stress. Willows can tolerate standing water by the way. Willow's are extremely resiliant to pruning, in fact it improves the health and vigor of the plant.

at my last house I had a corkscrew willow in clay soil for 15 years to block the view of a satellite dish-no problems. I took cuttings and the new 5 yr olds 'trees' are huge and healthy in sandy dry soil. But the pussy willow here is a different issue, it is 5 yrs old and is as you described, dying limbs, moldy stems, etc. I will cut down the old stems as soon as my fractured wrist heals, and let the suckers grow taller and hide the neighbors deck. I have some evergreens closer to the property line to hide their desk as they grow taller/wider. good luck. Maybe I will take corkscrew cuttings, root them, and grow them instead of the pussy willow.

There appears to be some confusion here. The dappled willow is normally a weak-wooded (yet vigorous) bush. However, this sort of bush can be top-grafted onto a standard (standard=trunk) of some stronger sort of willow to make a TREE FORM willow. If it is "tree form" it is 99% certain to have been grafted--check where the "bushy" part meets the trunk to be certain. Because the tree form is grafted, any growth from the trunk of a tree-form dappled willow will not be the same kind of willow as the top growth, and therefore, should be (must be) cut off. The pruning of a standard (grafted) dappled willow tree involves cutting the TOP BRANCHES (the grafted-on part) back by 1/3 or even 1/2 every spring, and removing unsightly sprigs at any time. If you saw the graft off the trunk, you will get either a dead trunk OR the trunk will sprout into whatever kind of willow was used for the trunk. As to the height of the dappled willow TREE FORM, once the graft has been put onto the new trunk, the trunk grows very slowly--for all intents and purposes, the height you buy is pretty much the height it will stay, except that the top bushy part will get to be a bigger and bigger tuft every year.