"homemade rooting hormone"

[dkline]

Lots of luck Ken with your seeds. I have a problem with seeds. They come up then die off. I just got some seed starting soil and am gonna try that. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. My cuttings that I root now, I use the forsythe pot method. When I first posted this thread I was just trying things to see what worked for me. Different people are good with different methods. There was one lady here that swore by this method. She rooted all of her cuttings like this. She had a bucket with willow branches in it and stuck her cuttings in there and they always rooted well for her. I however, have found that I do better in a soil mixture with cuttings. Its all trial and error and whatever works best for you.
Deb

[bali]

Your hitting close to home there.
Last winter I did germinate lots of christmas trees indoors, seed, in plain sand. Wonderful success..
Bad side Most die when transplanted. delicate..

Thanks .
I am anxious to try you thing with cuttings.. I have a azelea I wish to do .

thanks for giving us advice.. We love that.

Also thanks to PLANTSWAP for these opprotunities to be part of his forums..

bali

[kenwbclean01]

No kidding, hit and miss. Seeds dying off? Rhyzoctonia fungus? Commonly known as damp off or wire stem. The little guys sprout and the stem seems to get skinny, turn brown, fall over and die. We used a product (WAY BACK IN THE DAY) called Banrot to treat seed beds as well as cuttings, likely long off the market due to toxcicity. There must be a modern version of something to treat your medium with. Sterile mix is the best way to start.
Best, Ken

[bali]

Been down that road before too......

Thanks .

B

[deedee]

Hi! Martha Stewert can attest that the boiled willow water works, thats where I got that info. Have used it, and works great, after simmering willow water for a few hrs, cool, put in fridge, you have to soak plants for 12 hrs,willow water has to be kept in refrigerator, although not while soaking. I used willow to tie string on to keep plants from falling over once and they rooted and started growing leaves on them, real easy way to get new Willow trees. Hope this helps.

[bali]

Sounds good to me. I happen to have a willow plant.

b

[deedee]

What do you mean by a willow plant.A young seedling or a tree.

[bali]

Weeping willow tree......It was about 5 ft tall last fall.
Someone sent me the little thing an it grew.. Wasnt that nice?

b
They get huge.

[deedee]

Okay,so you have a Weeping Willow tree, how nice , oh! how it must look being just 5 ft high. Is it a fast grower, I've always thought it probably is from the way it grew stuck in the ground to hold my plant up and have been thinking about getting one for here, there is this one Willow here in town, so I will have to see if I can get some cuttings from it.You also have some rooting hormone from that, are you going to try it out. Sticking some twigs in the ground and getting them rooted will give you a trade with me .LOL
Sorry RR to many mistakes to correct, I'm speaking of spacing of words, as eyes are not good, difficult for her to read if too close, my comp is messed up an it takes me ages to correct.

[1H4J]

I remember my mother in law putting an aspirin in the vase whenever she had cut flowers. She said it was good for them but I don't remember why.

[deedee]

HI! yea, I have heard a lot of people do that and they don't know why, just that it helps and I bet that is the reason, it is derived from the Willow tree.

[calinromania]

I also heard about this willow tree thing. here in romania. so it must be true. lots of willows in the village my parents live in.
too bad i forgot about this and the brugmansia cuttings i got a while back (from a trade) kinda all rotted (correct?) --- i wish i had tried the willow "tea".
i guess they were touched by cold. suring the shipping...

[miamipanda]

I hope that some of you that do have willow trees, or access to them, will try this out and let us know how it goes for you!

[SeeksRoots]

I remember my Grandfather using willow branches sitting in water to root things in, and he was a Master Gardener way back when! Just because advertising has convinced us all that the new chemicals we buy are better, that doesn't mean the old ways don't work.
I will tell you how well willow works. When we were small kids, my grandfather was trimming his weeping willow tree. We asked for some branches to take home. Mom let us stick them along the fence in the back yard, figuring they would dry up and Dad would get rid of them when we weren't looking. We watered them every day for two weeks and to my Mothers surprise, they rooted and produced new growth.
They grew for years...two of them had to be removed because we stuck the original sticks too close together for tree planting. The other two grew to huge beautiful trees. They are no longer there however, because willows are a short lived tree compared to oaks and such.
Now if willows branches just stuck in the ground by a couple of kids can root and grow, imagine what they can do under cultivated conditions!

SR

[grumpy52]

Is there any particular size to the willow branches used to make a propagation tea? And do they have to be green?
I just helped someone cut down a willow tree and took some of the branches. I took some limbs up to 1" diameter, a few smaller branches, and a bunch of the end branches (the weeping tips). I'm hoping they can be stored away for future use.