Rooting Hormone for hydrangea cuttings; please help!

Hi, OK; I was all ready to try out propagating from stems for the first time: I took a long stem from one of my hydrangeas, cut it in exactly the right places to insert into my already-made potting medium, went to open up my bottle of rooting hormone and noticed the warnings on the side of the bottle. If you inhale it, you should call 911? If you get it on your skin you need to wash for 30 min. and call a poison control center?? Geesh! Well, I was so intimidated by the warnings on this stuff, I just went ahead and planted my hydrangea cuttings without using it and they all subsequently dried up and died :( Anyway, could someone please hold my hand through this process, and let me know how I can use this rooting hormone safely, or if there is another way to sucessfully root without the hormone?

Thanks for any feedback!

I posted this on your thread in the hydrangea forum and I saw someone else answered it the other place you posted but I'll post here too in case others are interested. Rooting hormone really isn't that bad to work with, you just need to use some common sense precautions. I always wear gloves when handling it, and if you're worried about inhaling it then get one of those little disposable dust masks and wear that. (and try looking at the warning labels on other products you use regularly--they all sound scarier than they really are, the key thing with anything is to use common sense)

Hi ecrane! What do you think of Roottone?

Honestly I haven't done much with cuttings so I couldn't tell you one way or the other on it. Lots of people use it though so I'm sure it works fine. Dip n Grow is a nice one if you have things that are tougher to start because you mix it up yourself and you can make higher strength for cuttings that are harder to start, but for the average relatively easy to root plant I think any of the brands would work fine. On one of Spunkster's other threads on this subject someone else mentioned liking gel hormones instead of powder because they felt like it stuck to the cutting better.

I think ecrane said it all---"just use common sense..." I've (quite successfully) used powder, gel, and liquid rooting hormones for over 30 years with never a single adverse experience. If you accidentally get some on you, rinse it off. I don't even wear gloves---just rinse it off if I get some on me. I AM careful not to inhale any, or get it in my eyes, but I'm careful with ALL chemicals that way. Even Safer soap! Most of the Draconian warnings you see on labels are forced there by the EPA. It's what makes them a "useful" function of government and increases their power (and budget) within the Federal Government. Initially(1970's, '80's), Corporations fought these Federal restrictions (I was there!) as the EPA was growing its power base, but the vast army of PI lawyers that was massing in the wings soon changed their minds. Corporate lawyers quicklly counseled that it was much wiser (and cheaper in the long run) to go along with whatever the EPA wanted. Made the scientists who developed these compounds crazy! They'd worked with these compounds for years developing them, spilling them, breathing them, etc., with no ill effects. Producing a product that would harm the user/environment wasn't their goal, or even in their best interest (as in, they'd get fired---or killed, fast!). But it's a "brave" new world out there. Welcome to the Nanny State... Meantime, individual common sense works better than any government regulation ever can...(e.g., Coffee is traditionally served hot; if you spill it on yourself, you're going to get burned---it's not the product's fault, it's yours, in spite of what the PI lawyers can pull off in a court of law, but it was worth $4 million as a get-rich-quick gamble). So ecrane/common sense still rules...unless you're of the get-rich-quick mentality...

Common sense tells me that most people don't know that talcum powder is carcinogenic if inhaled, and is associated with a number of cancers, and people probably need to hear about it. Those warnings are required by the Consumer Product Safety Commision and the Food and Drug Administration, not the EPA. Or it's the company's lawyers telling them to put the warnings on to limit their liability.

That coffee case wasn't even close to 4 million, and the woman needed skin grafts. Who serves coffee at 190 degrees? Not McD's, not any more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's_coffee_case


This message was edited Aug 15, 2008 11:52 PM

Actually the warnings on this type of product are mandated by the EPA and they decide what the required warnings are based on data that you submit with your product. The EPA regulates a number of products, including pesticides, herbicides, rooting hormones/growth regulators, and even cleaning products that make claims about sanitizing or disinfecting. You have to conduct toxicity testing on the products, and the warnings that go on the label are pre-defined based on the outcome of those particular toxicity tests, and if there are particular ingredients that are known to be toxic/carcinogenic then those warnings are put on there as well. The FDA has nothing to do with it, they regulate food, drugs, and cosmetics and have no business with products like this.

When I mentioned the FDA, I was referring to warning labels in general, not IBA in talc. I still wonder if it's not the company's lawyers and not a government agency. I don't remember seeing any warnings on rootone, but I can't find it now to look.
Strictly speaking, all these agencies are just enforcing the laws congress passed, the Toxic Substances Control Act and lots of others.
I've rooted Hydrangeas without hormones! Keep the cuttings humid however you can, fish tank, plastic bottles, whatever you can come up with. I bet they'd root in a glass of water on a windowsill too.

For products that are regulated by the EPA and FDA, the government agencies do mandate certain things like warnings, ingredient lists, etc that have to be on the label (I spent 5 years working on EPA registered products, and 5 years before that working on ones that were regulated by the FDA so I have plenty of personal experience with their rules!) Companies have some freedom on things like marketing claims that they want to include, but they don't have much flexibility on the warnings. Of course if they wanted to put additional warnings on there besides the required ones I'm sure the agencies wouldn't object!

Spunkster - hello neighbor....we must live close.

Ok...for the rest of your familiar faces...since we're discussing rooting hormones, I've repeatedly heard good things about dip-n-grow....but the stuff's MIA in these parts. I've hit the big box stores - the privately owned nurseries - garden centers....can't find it any where!!! Any thoughts (be nice - LOL) suggestions?

Is there something you can use as a poor mans rooting hormone?

I've heard from those much more knowledgeable then I have mentioned willow as a rooting hormone

I don't know if I've seen Dip n Gro locally, I ordered mine online somewhere (can't remember where, but any place that sells lots of propagation stuff ought to have it)

Some people do use willow water (or you might be able to substitute aspirin if you don't have any willows, aspirin is very similar to the chemical in the willow water that helps with rooting) I don't think willow is as effective as regular rooting hormone for everything though so if you have things that are tough to start from cuttings I'm not sure if it'll work or not.

What's YOUR opinion on Dip-n-grow? Do you like it or are you using something else? I'd love to take some cuttings of the jasmines & gardenias I've been blessed with and attempt rooting them.

I honestly haven't used it much--I'm not very good at cuttings so I don't do much with them at all. The nice thing about it is that you mix it up yourself so you can make a stronger concentration if you have something that's tough to root, but the active ingredient in it is the same as what's in pretty much everything else.

Thanks guys for your input...
I will be buying the gel stuff next time. The powder is so messy! I use rootone just for the sake of it, but honestly I can't tell if it makes any difference or not....
Hi Chantell! Can you believe my gardenia is doing much better?? Yey!

I'm so excited for you!!! I think the gel sounds ideal - what kind do you use?

Oh, I haven't used the gel yet, but somebody mentions it up in the thread somewhere...

Hi All, thanks so much everyone for your answers in here as well as in the other forums!!

Chantall, yes, we are close, hi neighbor. I'm about 45 min. South of DC, so a little more North than you, but in the same zone! (Japanese Beetles are gone now, horray!)

I'm definitely going to look into the dip -n- grow, and the gel, I would like something a little less messy and less intimidating if it is available around here and if it works just as well as the powder.

Thanks Ecrane, you make good points... Thanks to you StonoRiver for your keen insight on the matter, also, it makes me feel better that you have used these products for so many years without any adverse effects. I really need to use something because these hydrangeas are not easy to root, they all want to shrivel up before a single root appears.

I've read through this thread and what I can tell you is this. In our nursery we've tried everything known to man to root cuttings. People give me samples of gels, powders, spray over applications, everything. The one thing that always, always gets the best results on every plant we do is good'ol dip and grow, in a 10-1 solution. We root rubrums, elms, hydrangea, franklinia, cotinus, everything with 10-1. We stick them in straight pumice and put them under floramist nozzles attached to a mistamatic. We root over a million cuttings this way every year.

Mike Dir was at the Farwest Show in Portland last weekend and he wanted to know what "witches brew" we used to get such high takes on our Royal Purple, and Golden Spirit Smoketree. He was floored when I told him 10 to 1 Dip n' Grow. It's not rocket science and you can make it far more complicated then it has to be. And as far as hydrangea, Snow queen and Passionate (New Tardiva) root almost 100%. We do trials on every new product there is and we still make our living on dip n' grow. Keep it simple.

I haven't read all of these comments, but I think most of them were about the product used as a rooting hormone rather than the procedure. I would like to add that on large leafed plants such as hydrangeas, rhododendrons, etc. I fold the leaves on the cuttings and cut across at an angle, reducing them to half size or less. I don't think they need all of this expansive surface.

Jeanette

This message was edited Aug 25, 2008 11:22 AM

Alrighty then....back to going ISO of Dip-n-grow...I swear you'd think just ONE nursery in the Northern VA area would carry it..ugh!!! Guess I'll be going online

That is too bad. We just had a co-op for dip n grow close. You might contact the host or whatever they call the people who run them and see if she has any left. She had to buy it in 8 oz bottles and break it down into 2 oz to ship to us. And she just got it and is packaging it up now.

Jeanette

Chantell, check at your nursery in person first. I also went to their website and it showed "no vendors" in a 25 mile radius for me. Then I mentioned to a friend at lunch time, and she said she did see Dip n'Grow at our neighborhood nursery! So I'll check there first before I place an online order,....
R

My Michael Dirr book always talks about Indole-3 Butyric Acid (IBA) in an alcohol solution (e.g., "3000 ppm IBA, alcohol quick dip, placed in peat:perlite.."). Does anyone know about the alcohol part - I was always curious about that.

I suspect it's just to dissolve the IBA, it's not soluble in water but can be dissolved in alcohol. They make a water soluble version IBA-K if you'd rather not use alcohol.