Rooting Willow Cuttings in Water
Mid-February rolled around and my itch to plant really started to get bad. Of course winter’s icy fingers still have got a good grip on the land, but when I looked closely I could see the small signs of season shifting soon and that hold of winter will be beginning to unclench ever so little. And that reminded me, that this time drawing nearer to the end of winter is a great time to be taking some willow cuttings to propagate.
So off with my pruners I went on a clear and sunny day on February 16th, and gathered just a couple of cuttings of last year’s growth from a non-native curly/corkscrew willow (Salix matsudana) and a North American native pussy willow (Salix discolor). I made sure my pruners were clean before making 45-degree angle cuts. The cuttings I took were around pencil-diameter or slightly larger, and then I trimmed them down into 4 cuttings total to about a foot or 12 inches in length each. Then I just got a jar and stuck them in and filled with water! I did have a small skinny end of a section of pussy willow leftover also with the emerging catkins, so I stuck that in the water too to see if I could get the catkins to fully open but no real plans for it to root since so tiny (only a couple catkins did end up opening).
Once the cuttings were settled in the jar of water, it was time to be patient. I was diligent to check on them everyday and set them in a north-facing window so they could get adequate light but not too strong, and then changed their water every other day so it remained fresh.
After a week in the jar of water, the curly willow cuttings (the greener stems) formed some root buds, but no foliage yet.
You can see the tiny white root buds above developing on the curly willow that first week. The pussy willow cuttings didn’t have much to see yet.
By week three though, much development was going on with the willows!
You can see loads of roots and foliage has developed on the curly willow cuttings. The pussy willow cuttings were also showing signs of root buds and a little bit of foliage emergence as well by that third week. I decided to go ahead and take the curly willow cuttings out of the jar and transfer to a pot with soil which I kept very moist for a couple of weeks, watering daily as the roots continued to establish.
The pussy willow cuttings remained in the jar and continued to grow, and after a little over a month now here’s where they’ve ended up at:
Now I believe it’s soon time to transfer these to pots as well. I’m so pleased these all were successful, and propagating willows simply like this in water was a super easy way to scratch that itch to get growing again and ready for spring!