Weeping willow

[catjac1975]

Hey thanks!

This spring if I do root some I will send you one.

 

[secuono]

Weeping Willow is my all time favorite tree, no yard of mine is complete without one!
It's very easy to get whips to root, but then after planting, it can be tricky.

My dad, when I was little, once put two 3in thick fallen branches into a 5gal bucket in fall. They were at least 10ft tall before they wept at the ends. A few weeks before spring, it had green leaves growing and roots. That's how we got the two big trees in that yard, 3 total. Original was a crappy tree and never got very big, maybe 15ft. The branches that broke off it ended up reaching the 3rd floor roof.

 

[Nyboy]

Going to try this spring, love this tree.

 

[897tgigvib]

Willows are easy to start from almost any kind of cutting, especially winter hardwood cuttings.

There are a lot more kinds of willow than Weeping. Most of them do some weeping. I especially like the Arctic Willow. Grows as a shapely shrub, full and rounded. Different selections have different total sizes and shades of green to the leaves. Some even havbe a slight purplish cast to the leaves.

They all do like their water. I suppose there might be some desert forms I don't know about though.

 

[thistlebloom]

We have a wild scrub willow that grows all over. It's a multi -trunked small tree, or really big bush. It's something the moose like to browse in the winter.
I like that Arctic willow too Marshall , and Scarlet Curls, and regular Curly, and....

 

[Nyboy]

Marshall I learn a lot from you. Can you give more detail on what is "winter hardwood" what would be best medium to start cutting in? I Ordered a heat matt from ebay. Thats

 

[vfem]

Just so you know, I have TONS of willows around our ponds and along the wooded trail behind our property. Long as the are by the pond, we have no root issues with our lawn. One is getting the very brittle and I'm planning a hard prune of dead wood soon.

I'm not sure the other varieties of willow we have, I've never looked them up, but we do have 1 weeping for sure.... a few others are different. They're all fairly old though.

In the spring I scrape branches into water and use that to feed my new plant starts I'm moving out into the garden. There is so much rooting hormone in that bark of the new growth, it really helps my other plants get a head start in the spring.

 

[897tgigvib]

Nyboy, hardwood cuttings are cuttings you take in winter.Now is a good time.

When taking cuttings of a plant you have not much experience with, take a lot of them. All kinds of sizes and ways.
I did that with my grape rootstock cuttings, and almost all of them "took". Some things just really love to make new roots and grow. Willows, Poplars, Cottonwoods, and Geraniums are that way. Take some prunings that have nice fat buds on them. Make nice clean WIDE angle cuts with plenty of thick cambium, that alive looking ring just inside the outer layer. The innermost part should also look good. That cut should be just under a good bud. You can do cuttings a lot of them in a good sized deep pot for Willow, and also right in some good ground that has noon and afternoon filtered shade.

Cuttings have no roots at first. They will appreciate a misty spray on their top part. After all, besides the little moisture that cambium can draw, which is very little because it is not designed like root hairs, and the little moisture already in the cutting, it has nowhere to get water except what you spray on it to help it. That's why the filtered shade.

Yes, a lot of cuttings take better with bottom heat that is very mild. Too much heat is too much because it might encourage rot and it might dry it too fast. Only a little, and maybe only at night for Willows.

Once encouraged by Willow tree success, and seeing what it took, and which ones took best, you may find yourself taking cuttings of other things the same winter hardwood way.

And then you may start trying SPRING SOFTWOOD cuttings of other things...another story for those

 

[Nyboy]

Thanks what would be the best to use sand, peat moss, soil?

 

[897tgigvib]

For Willows any nice garden soil in the garden ground, or in a tall pot it should probably be good clean composty soil.

One of the things that make cuttings not take right is rot or damping off.

Rooting hormones are good to use mostly to prevent damping off for the easy to root things. Most brands have stuff to prevent damping off rot in it. A little goes a huge long way.

Those rooting hormones are a big help for things that are more difficult or slower to root, and can give confidence for things you aren't sure of. Rootone is probably the most common brand that nurseries should have.

When I was propagating at the nursery I mostly used potting soil. For the winter cuttings that were in pots in the greenhouse I added perlite to the potting soil because the greenhouse tended to high humidity in winter.


It is really very satisfying to take cuttings! You can try just about any plant. Some are difficult, some will not take, and some can actually take 3 years to root! Most will take within 4 months. The conifers can take years, and tree places have special bundled cuttings automatically misted and temp controlled.