Willow Water: Homemade Rooting Hormone

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine noticed I was making cuttings of just about every plant I could get my hands on that might root. It’s common to use some rooting hormone to encourage the cutting to spur new roots and to protect the edge from getting “funky” in water. Instead of buying a commercial product, he suggested I make my own rooting hormone with some willow branches from a tree in his yard. He brought me a bag of cuttings from his tree and after reading some online tutorials (1), (2), I made my own batch of “willow tea” and let a succulent cutting sit in it overnight. Here is what I did…