Team slow propagation vs team rooting hormone - which side actually wins?

I've been growing cuttings for about 3 years now, and I swear half my pothos props in plain water root in 2 weeks flat, while my friend's philodendron cuttings with rooting powder still take 4 weeks to show anything. Over this spring, I tested 20 cuttings of golden pothos - 10 in just water and 10 in water with a dab of Clonex gel. The water-only ones actually rooted faster by about 3 days on average, which caught me off guard. But then my spider plant pups with rooting hormone put out roots in 8 days compared to 14 without. So what's your take - do you think rooting hormones help or are they just a waste of money for common houseplants? Has anyone else seen big differences depending on the plant type?

3 comments

3 Comments

burns.fiona18d ago

The one thing nobody's touched on is the age of the cutting when you apply rooting hormone. Fresh cuts with the wound still weeping take up the powder or gel way different than cuttings that have been sitting out for an hour. I accidentally left some tradescantia cuttings on my counter for like 4 hours before dipping them in rooting powder and they rooted faster than the ones I dipped right away. Might be that older cuts have time to callus over a bit and don't get smothered.

lucas_perez18d ago

Heard this plant youtuber I follow say that rooting hormone is basically just a backup for plants that are stubborn, not a speed boost for easy ones. Makes sense honestly, because pothos and spider plants are practically weeds they root so fast without any help. But I tried it on a woody rosemary cutting once and the hormone dip definitely made a difference, got roots in like 3 weeks versus over a month without. So I think it really depends on the plant's natural rooting speed, not just the product itself. Might be that the gel sits on the stem too thick and slows down water uptake for some plants, which is why your water-only pothos beat the Clonex ones.

finleycooper7d ago

I gotta push back on the idea that rooting hormone is just a backup for stubborn plants. That youtuber might be right in some cases, but it's not that simple. I've used Clonex gel on fresh tomato cuttings and saw roots in 5 days compared to 10 without it, so it's clearly speeding things up for easy plants too. The timing of when you apply it matters more than people think, like what burns.fiona said about letting cuttings sit first. But I don't buy that it's only for woody or tricky stuff when I've seen the difference on basic herbs like oregano and basil. Maybe the key is using a lighter dip, not the thick gel that can clog things up, but dismissing it as a backup feels wrong.