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Wedded Wood - Understanding the Story
The California native Walnut
Grown together to create something new
The California native Walnut
The Claro Walnut, a California native, is a rugged survivor. Suited to California's soils and climate, however it produces a very hard, undesirable walnut. The wood of the Claro Walnut is often richly colored and highly figured..
The European walnut
Grown together to create something new
The California native Walnut
The European walnut produces a beautiful, canopied tree with excellent nuts, but it does not thrive in California. Older varieties can also produce deeply figured, but lighter colored wood, that complement the Claro Walnut.
Grown together to create something new
Grown together to create something new
Grown together to create something new
Over 100 years ago, Luther Burbank demonstrated a technique for grafting these two varieties together, resulting in a tree that is both beautiful and bountiful. It has been so successful that 400,000 California acres produce 99% of the nation's walnuts.
The story in the wood
Grown together to create something new
Wedded Wood™ products illustrate how each walnut variety grows according to its heritage while strongly merging at the graft. The merging of California and European trees results in complex and beautiful patterns. The primary pattern that one sees, as the two trees mature together, arise from their different growth rates. Because the Claro rootstock grows much faster than its European top, means that each year's growth ring, at the graft, must curve ever more horizontally to find their partner
Wedded Wood™ as a gift
Wedded Wood™ products have become popular as gifts for new couples or as anniversary gifts. Each piece, by design, demonstrates the best aspects of a good union: together the individuals can achieve much more than they could do separately, that each continues to grow in a manner consistent with their own heritage, and that the visible bond between them celebrates the complexity, beauty and strength of that union.
Finding Wedded Wood™
The raw wood for making Wedded Wood™ products comes from the replacement of very old walnut orchards, originally planted with varieties that are now seldom used. For us, it is a treasure hunt, as we search for these old orchards facing replacement. It is important that we gather the wood just at the moment the farmers are removing the trees. Because new varieties are much less figured, means that the raw material for Wedded Wood™ is a diminishing resource.