Sticks are been sold for almost £20 in the trendy North London suburb of Stoke Newington.
A florist situated next to a park has come under fire for selling sticks – for a massive £18.
Botanique in the North Hackney hipster haunt of Stokie has around eight pieces of wood around a foot long for customers to hang on their walls.
The wall hangings range from £12 to £18 with various shapes and sizes, with some including notches to hang clothes from.
Most are made from birch or holly and are planed and sanded at the back with holes drilled through so they can be attacked to a wall.
BBC presenter Jeremy Vine brought the sticks to the attention of social media when he tweeted a pictures to his 600,000 followers.
Shop keeper and owner, Alice Howard, said the wall hangings were worth the price tag as they needed to be sourced and hand crafted.
She even had some of them hanging on her wall at home.
The 29-year-old said: “They are made by a friend of my mum in Devon, he doesn’t sell them to me very cheaply.
“I think they take about 20 minutes to make.
“He has to source the wood because not all branches have the right notches.
“Then he has to sand them off and plane the back to give them a nice finish, then add the holes, so that’s what makes it a product so to speak and not just a stick.”
Botanique is situated on Stoke Newington’s Church Street, just yards from Clissold Park, which has large open spaces and mature trees. With branches. And sticks.
Alice’s first shop opened five years ago in Clerkenwell, where the sticks were first on sale, branching out with the new store in Stoke Newington in the last couple of months.
A customer at the shop also thought the wall hangings were barking up the wrong tree.
Local John Hawkes, 49, said: “That’s pretty steep for a stick, I’m sure I could find one on the floor myself and drill a hole in it and save myself nearly £20.
“Maybe I should start selling them myself.”
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