Rooting Bay Laurel?

This is Egan but my Mom gave me permission to post a question about how to root Bay Laurel trees.

Has anyone ever successfully rooted a Bay Laurel tree shoot? We have three Bay Laurel but only one is doing good. We plan to move the sickly ones to a Southern exposure area next spring. But, we need to start some new plants too. We tried last summer but all the cuttings died. I think we had the soil too wet.

Here is a link to how we did it this time:
http://www.facebook.com/MeanwhileBackinSaluda

If anyone has any suggestions, thank you.

I looked at the video but did not see anything specific to the Bay Tree. We use the leaves for pest control and will keep trying to root new trees.

Anyone have luck rooting a Bay tree from a cutting?

Have you got any willow? i have heard that if you leave willow in some water for few days then put another cutting in it works wonders as willow is very rootable and will give off a natural rooting solution.. worth a try.. i have a bay i might try it on myself

Willow? Wouldn't that be similar to aspirin? Wonder if I dump some aspirin water in there if it would help? Hummmm....have to ponder on that one. I think a neighbor has willow. Not sure if any here but I will have to look. That might be a good project. We could leave the current pots of Bay like they are but then try the willow water and see if it helps.

Thanks!

Cool - look at this link:
http://deepgreenpermaculture.com/diy-instructions/home-made-plant-rooting-hormone-willow-water/

Thank you! I am going to find some willow and give this a try. Thank you very much.

Wow didn't know about the Aspirin thing that's amazing! what a versatile plant! WE LOVE WILLOW!

Some of what I have read suggests that different plants have different factors limiting adventitious root formation (roots from stem tissue), so the auxins in willow bark help some but not others. I would try layering... that's what I am going to shoot for next summer. Girdle a branch, and then put compress of compost wrapped at the girdle. The leaves get water from the xylem, but sugar and hormones trickling down through the phloem stop at the girdle point, stimulating adventitious root formation. Another approach is to bend down and bury and branch (but wouldn't work well for my bay laurel.) Once roots form, wait till fall, cut the shoot, and pot up. This is a common technique for species where root formation is so slow that the cutting rarely survives long enough for roots to strike.

(method gleaned from retired doctor of botany, who roots shoots easily with about 70% success)


Take semi-ripe cuttings, place several in gallon ziploc bag with about 3 fingers worth of moistened clean soil, zip, leave in corner of house for 3 months. Easy-peasy.

Thank you - I like the idea of tossing something else in the corner of my house! A baggie of bay tree cuttings would be right at home among the other clutter. We will give that method a try too.
So far the first cuttings still look good. They are green at top but no rot on bottom. Will keep watching them. Have not found a willow tree yet. Still looking. We thought about putting an aspirin in water and using it for watering but probably won't do that. I don't want to mix too many methods in one pot. Thanks!

Please let us know if anything works for you.

Will do.

Hi Egan

I agree with the tips given above, but thought I would mention that I was given several little bay trees by my mum, who had a very well-established shrub herself, and they were all seedlings which had occurred naturally. Her soil was very good loam and reasonably dry, with the warmest temperatures in the UK (doesn't mean much but snow was rare and the summers used to get very warm - it was a very sheltered microclimate). Where I live is quite damp and cold and I have had no luck with rooting cuttings of bay, so you might be right that you're too damp. They are mediterranean plants after all. I would try layering.

Good luck!

Hello - Thank you for the tip. Where are you in England? I visited London and Salisbury with my family in 2009. I liked Salisbury very much. We are in Western NC and also have a micro-climate here. It is called "isothermal" where warm air from SC flows up towards the mountains. We are, however, on an outside edge of the thermal drafts and so our weather is much closer to the Asheville temperatures. In other words, we have more snow and are colder.

We are just going to leave the bay cuttings in the pots and continue to watch them. Also, we plan to try other methods but this week we are distracted with work and school. I am taking a robotics class and have two meetings with it this week.

Thank you to everyone. When we do a new method, I will post more pictures here or at our Facebook page. Thank you for "liking" our page. We are taking a business class too and are trying to learn how to better use social media.

Thank you. Egan Asbill-Beck

Hi Egan

My mum's garden was on the Hampshire coast, just onshore from Hayling Island. The microclimate was created by being sheltered from the English Channel by Hayling and the Isle of Wight to the south, and from the north winds by the South Downs which lie behind. There's a spot further inland which often gets the highest recorded temperatures in the UK (around 100F). I live in Kent now, in the south-east, which is drier (though not my garden soil, which is clay) and colder, and gets the North Wind straight from the Arctic at this time of year. But Britain is always going to be more temperate than a big continent like North America due to the ever-changing maritime climate - we are the windiest country in Europe. I worry about the Gulf Stream - the current that comes from Florida which keeps us warm - and hope it never disappears! Otherwise the UK would be much colder as we are on the same latitude as Hudson Bay.

Looking forward to hearing about your cuttings (the phrase "flourish like the green bay tree" must exist for a reason), and good luck with the robotics!

Thank you. We are going to make a hugelcultur in an old sand box! My brother or Mom will make another post about it next week.

Hi everyone. New to this site. I just had to take a bunch of clippings from my bay plant because it was suffering from terrible root rot. It hadn’t reached the plant itself yet, so I took as many clippings as I could to try to salvage it. And now I’m scouring the Internet trying to figure out how to get these clippings to live. I’m in Northern NJ, and I admit my thumb is not very green 🤦🏻‍♀️. I’ve seen so many people say that it’s nearly impossible to kill a bay plant, but these people clearly haven’t met me. I’m definitely going to try rooting a few of my clippings in well-draining soil covered with a bag, but frankly, I love the idea of putting a couple of them in a ziploc with some soil and throwing them in a corner for a few months!! 😃 Don’t know if anyone will see this, as this convo took place 14 years ago, but wanted to thank you all for giving this plant murderer some hope ❤️

Hi Shannon and welcome to permies! It doesn't appear that Mary Ann ever updated us with how she got on with her cuttings - I hate to assume failure, but people are more likely to share successes! Still there are a few methods there to try. I hope one works fo you.
Any chance of saving your bay tree? Is it planted in the ground or in a pot? I'm wondering if it is possible to replant it in a better soil. I nearly lost mine last year as it was rocking in the wind, but some rocks placed around it seem to have stabilised it and it is growing well for me this year.