The products our company produces are based on brushwood. This is a general term for the wood that is harvested from what are generally called copses but in The Netherlands we call grienden.

A griend is a particular kind of copse, generally in wet, or boggy, areas where access is generally only possible on foot or with low ground pressure tracked vehicles, and the vegetation consists mainly of very short willow or ash stumps from which osiers grow.

One famous such griend in The Netherlands is National Park 'De Biesbosch'.

Until a few decades ago harvesting the growth from grienden was done by hand and was quite profitable. Craftsmen, called rijswerkers, chopped the stems one at a time, bound them into bundles and physically carried them to the central storage area. The sticks were e.g. used to build barrels, for broomsticks and of course for the products mentioned on this website. See Natural grienden for more info.

Nowadays harvesting the brushwood is mainly by machine from man-made plantations which, due to their design, is much more efficient and the quality of the harvest can be better monitored. See Plantations for more info.