Some plants are propagated more easily by cuttings than by seed. When you're dealing with fruit trees, depending on the plant, you might not have to wait for the tree to mature before it starts producing fruit if you propagate the new plant from a cutting.

Willow bark contains plant growth hormones which we can use for rooting new cuttings. The bark can be used to make an extract that will promote root growth on the cutting.

Here's How to Make Natural Rooting Hormone:

1. Find yourself a willow tree that you can do some pruning on. There are almost 400 species of willow trees and almost every one of them will work to make rooting hormone. Clip off a few new growth branches for this project. You'll only need a bout 4 of them 6 feet long. It's important that the branch is new growth and alive for what we're going to use it for.
2. Using your garden clippers or a good pair of scissors cut the whole of the branches into about 1 inch long pieces (2-3 cm). The length isn't critical but smaller pieces will allow the juices that we want from the bark to come out more readily.
3. Put all your willow branch pieces into a large pot and add about twice as much water as you have of willow branch pieces. Don't worry about measuring too much as the mixture is not super critical.
4. Turn on your stove and simmer the mixture for about a half an hour. The heat helps release the growth hormone inside the willow bark and lets it mix with the water. After the half hour of simmering let the mixture cool naturally overnight in the pot.
5. After the mixture has cooled and sat for about 8 hours you're going to want to filter out the chunky stuff. You can do this with anything - I prefer an old sock that's on its' last leg. After the mixture is filtered it's ready to use.

You can store this mixture in the refrigerator for a couple of months. Make sure you mark the container as you don't want anybody drinking it.

For cuttings you can place the mixture into a cup and soak the cutting in it until it begins to root.

Water your transplants for the first couple of days with this mixture to help the plant get over the shock of being transplanted and stimulate root growth in its' new home.

Rooting hormone really does help increase your success rate when propagating plants using cuttings. Even though it's really easy to make, if you don't want to make your own, you can always get your Rooting Hormone from Amazon.com

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Hormex 8oz

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