Processing foraged common reed for basket weaving

There's is an ample supply of common reed (Phragmites australis) close to where I live (on public unprotected land, so for perfect for foraging) and it would seem a natural candidate for basket weaving, from what I read of historical sources.

It seems like commercial reeds available for basketry nowadays come from tropical cane, not common reed, and I can't really find processing guidelines.

I decided to give it a shot anyway, but my naive attempt at weaving failed entirely.

I cut the reeds, which are already fairly stiff and dry at this time of the year, soaked for a few hours and tried bending. The reeds would not bend at all unless I crushed them a bit, and even then, they would break at every joint.

Any tips?

I am but a novice at weaving, so might not be able to help much. But I love finding ways to use especially abundant plants to make baskets, so am excited to see what others have to share!

I do wonder if there's a particular time of year that would be most optimal to harvest the reeds for greater flexibility? I know with the materials I like to use (mostly invasive vines like winter creeper and english ivy), there are definitely times in the year and in their growth cycles that are better. I've usually just watched them over time to figure out when that is.
Or perhaps a longer soaking period? Some materials I have had to soak for days to get them to bend without breaking.

I typically weave Boston Ivy or grapevine (because that is what I have growing on my house, and I need to prune it from time to time to keep it from damaging the roof or blocking the doors and windows.

It started because I just couldn't see myself sending that to the dump (well, the city's composting service, so not that bad, but still). I started weaving wreaths... but now getting into basket weaving because there's only so many wreaths one can use in one's home

Last night I tried weaving the phragmite leaves rather than the stalks. I made a satisfactory placemat prototype. This morning, the leaves were dried and shrunken! More gauze than placemat. Hee hee.
I tried to make some cordage from the leaves and they broke easily.
Bummer because I waited 6+ months to work  with them. (I started playing with cordage last year.)

Hi Mir, could you please explain how you prepared the phragmites leaves for weaving I’ve been looking into using since we also have a lot that we don’t know how to get rid of.

I'm wondering about splitting the leaves, drying them, rehydrating them and then making cordage to avoid the shrinking.

A few weeks ago I was shown a partly made basket. The leaves of common reed had been plaited together, and then sewn at the edges; that seems like possibly a good way of going about it.

Grasses tend to be most flexible while they are actively growing. Maybe late spring is the time to harvest the shoots? At that time, reed canary grass can be harvested and dried, and is very flexible, so it seems likely that when harvested and dried while in growth, they should be flexible and good for basketry.

Hello - you might find this pdf useful - it has all sorts of plants which have been used since the stone age:-
https://richlyadorned.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/annecatalogenglish-cdr.pdf

Another useful source is "Fibre Basketry, Homegrown and Handmade"  Published by the Fibre Basket Weavers of South Australia, edited by Helen Richardson.   Plants native to Australia, but there must be counterparts in other countries.  Lots of How to instructions and diagrams.  I think it's still available.

My feeling on the Phragmites australis is that you might have to use just the leaves as the stems tend to be rigid.  Or try crushing the stems.  Bear in mind that plant materials for basket weaving need to be damp to avoid splitting and breaking (but you knew that!)  Leaves probably best as a core for a sewn construction rather than trying to do a regular over/under weave.
Best of Luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcwFPWkLVdUA friend recenly cut down a large patch (for the second time!) of 10-15ft tall stems of this, and intends to have a controlled burn some time in the winter. I hate to see anything go to waste, so cut off the leafy top halves with a view to making a temporary shelter for a test rocket stove, but then realised I wasn't going to have enough time before I had to leave. So I've just laid them pretty thickly in a rectangular area to see if they will act like a light-barrier mulch and kill off the grass and weeds ready to plant in spring. I'm pretty sure by the time I get back there (hopefully next Feb.) the leaves will have shriveled and I don't have much hope of it having killed off any weeds, but . . . I am now wondering if I could make mats with it, to use in a construction project ( too long too explain how here). To do this the reeds would need to be split, like bamboo, so I looked on YT and found
This guy is an artist so I won't be half so fussy about width or anything, but I will definitely be splitting it pretty thin, if it's possible! I'll let you know how I get on in February.
This is an interesting idea too, if the stuff has regrown in three months, I will try this on the new growth

@Marion - the stems/stalks should work well as a weed suppressor - I used tansy stalks on my potato patch and got very few nettles or grass in evidence, while the spuds weren't worried a bit!

Also want to mention that I cut my finger very badly a few years ago trying to split common reed stems. I was holding the stem below, thinking I could split it at that node without excess force. But no… so be careful! Though maybe it’s my foolishness more than any inherent danger. Then, the nodes can be difficult.

Maieshe Ljin wrote:Also want to mention that I cut my finger very badly a few years ago trying to split common reed stems. I was holding the stem below, thinking I could split it at that node without excess force. But no… so be careful! Though maybe it’s my foolishness more than any inherent danger. Then, the nodes can be difficult.

Ouch!  I managed to cut my finger on the actual stem while cutting them down, but it was only a bandaid job thankfully.
If you want to try it again for any reason, the artist in the Japanese video shows how to hold things so that your body acts as a block between your hands so that the knife cannot reach your fingers.