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…

Once you have some branches, cut them into sizes that will conveniently fit into your containers, I used two glass canning jars.

I made some slices into the bark to make the hormone, which is contained in the material between the bark and the core, more accessible.

Boil water.

Put the willow branches into the containers and pour the boiling water over the willow bark.

After letting the tea cool a bit, I put the lids on the jars and stored them in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, I removed the bark so it would not go bad in the liquid. My first test was with this small succulent cutting. I used a little of the willow tea in a jar to encourage rooting. You can also just dip the ends of cuttings in the hormone mixture and then plant into soil.

I’ll be using this tea for the next few weeks and keeping the jars in the refrigerator. I’ll write again with some results of the first cuttings. Let me know if you have tried this and what your experiences have been.