Using Aloe Vera Gel as a Powerful Rooting Hormone - a real gardeners delight!
Complete 100% Aloe Vera whole leaf gel used as an organic alternative to commercial rooting compoundSay goodbye to the chemicals and compounds in commercial rooting powder. I had no idea there was so much interest in using Aloe Vera gel for this purpose, but now that I've tried it, I'm afraid, there's no going back. The results are astounding. The photos below will give you an idea of what I mean.
Here are the results of an experiment I did with our own Aloe gel. Simply dip your cuttings in the gel, make a hole in your compost with a thin stick and insert the cutting. Use the stick to draw compost against the stalk for support and water sparingly. Some people take the cutting out of the gel and leave it to set for a few minutes before planting. Others, leave the cutting in the gel overnight or longer. The choice is yours.
Cuttings from around the garden  This is the pile of hedge and shrub cuttings I chose for this experiment from all over the garden. | Stripped back ready to plant up  Prepared cuttings ready for planting. Note the uniform length and same number in each pot. | My home grown aloe leaves  This is the actual Aloe leaves I used for this experiment. Half as clear gel and half as the whole leaf. |
Cuttings planted up  All the cuttings planted up. Note we have control group (left), clear gel only, and whole leaf only on the right. | After 2 week control group  This is after one week of settling in. The control group look a lot less vibrant than the gel cuttings. | After 2 weeks aloe groups  These results show clearly that the clear gel and whole leaf gel works better than the control group. |
Griselinia Cuttings  All these Griselinia cuttings have been propagated using Aloe gel and are growing well. | Laurel Cuttings  Look how healthy these cuttings are. Taken weeks ago, laurel is notoriously difficult to grow successfully. | Bay Tree Cuttings  Hardwood cuttings can be among the most difficult to grow. These look healthy enough though, don't they? |
The Aloe Plants Rooting Gel Offer
Most rooting gel is very expensive and can cost up to £10 for 50ml. But here at Aloe Plants we like to give much better value than that. Some people like to dunk and plant, others like to allow a little soak time in the gel. Either way is fine and easily accommodates your personal gardening preference.Our Aloe rooting gel comes in 190ml jars, enough for hundreds, even thousands of cuttings, and for £10 + P&P represents exceptional value for money. We have plenty of product and so we give you almost 4 times more for the same price as other manufacturers give you 50ml.
Please click the button below to place your order, and I will get it off to you by first class delivery. Why not have a jar for yourself and buy a jar for a friend? Two jars come within the weight limit of the post and so only incurs one set of postal charge. 3 jars come post free.
Order your Aloe Vera rooting gel here One pot is £10 + £3 P&P. Two pots cost £20 + £3 P&P. Three pots come post FREE. I have been experimenting with this for months now and the results are astonishing. I guarantee you won't be disappointed with your results. The only caveat here is that you work with nature and don't try to compete with nature. What do I mean? Don't try to take cuttings out of season. Make sure you use a well draining compost. I ALWAYS add sand to my compost for cuttings. Three methods: Dip your cuttings and plant. Dip your cuttings, allow to dry, then plant. Soak your cuttings (1hr to 1day), then plant. Whatever works for you is best for you. Please let me know how you get on. | Jars contain 190ml of Aloe Vera gel. Almost 4x more than you normally get for the same price of other rooting gels. You have enough here to do hundreds, if not thousands of plant cuttings. Really good value for money. Cuttings Season is Here. Time to get started. Our Aloe Gel is 100% Aloe gel. No additives, no preservatives, no thickeners, no colour enhancers, nothing that didn't come out of the plant in the first place. That is as organic as we can get. Thank you for trusting us with your order. |
Why does this seem to be so effective?
I've tried many of the other products recommended to promote rooting, but none have been as successful as Aloe gel. My cuttings just seem to root faster. I don't know the reason for that in a scientific or laboratory sense, but I can speculate as I do have a theory.
The main requirement of a cutting to root successfully is water, root forming stimulant, a sterile location and a growing medium.
If we take these points in order and theorize why they might be relevant, perhaps we can find a logical answer.
1. To root a cutting needs water:
When you apply Aloe gel to damaged or cut skin, it dries and seals the cut. Some people, including myself, pack small chunks of Aloe gel into open wounds that eventually heal fully with no scaring. As the Aloe dries and seals it keeps the cut end and stem nodes completely free of bacteria and viruses. Yet the gel has a high water content (95%) in its make up. Water from the compost reactivates these qualities by absorbtion and thus the stem is watered, sterilized and nourished in a healthy environment.
2. Root cuttings need active ingredients to stimulate root growth:
The fact that all plants grow roots in abundance suggests they contain the substances they need to expand their root formation as they grow. A cutting also has these substances (in smaller amounts) and is the reason they normally take so readily. But when they don't, it suggests there is too little of these rooting stimulants in the cutting and so when we add a rooting hormone we give the cutting a boost and a chance at survival.
I would theorize that of the 75 or so active ingredients in the Aloe plant, at least one of them, probably many of them, supply the cutting with nutrients and stimulants to help them root effectively, a bit like adding fertilizer to an established plant; the difference is remarkable.
3. So what things?
The 75 are made up of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, sugars, lignin, saponins, salacylic acid and amino acids.
All of these have the collective effect of providing the reserves a small cutting needs to root and flourish. Vitamins supply antioxidants, enzymes control cell division and growth, minerals provide essential and proper enzyme function, sugars provide energy, anthraquinones are anti-bacterial and anti-fungal, fatty acids are plant steroids that activate growth and are antiseptic. Hormones help stimulate plant growth. Various acids and phenols inhibit fungi, bacteria and viruses.
What else could a vulnerable, stressed little cutting possibly need? All of the aloe constituents just specified should act like a kick start to life don't you think? A reservoir of life giving soup, perhaps.
4. Lastly they need a sterile location to grow:
Which it is virtually impossible to provide outside of the lab. Soil and compost has bugs and bacteria in it. Some good and some bad. The good help feed the plant and assimilate all the goodness that is available in the Aloe gel. The bad try to eat it, or destroy it, or ruin the cuttings chances of survival by polluting the environment around it.
However, when you coat or soak your cutting in Aloe gel, you're effectively putting a protective coating around it that keeps out the rot and gives the inside a boost that promotes re-growth and stimulates root production.
Does that sound logical to you?
Conclusion:
The two most important aspects to consider for successful cuttings are sufficient rooting hormone and keeping the cutting free of fungal attack long enough for the roots to form. I think we can safely say that Aloe Vera gel can provide all of those criteria in abundance and success can be assured for almost all types of soft to semi-hardwood and hardwood cuttings.
Why do you use glass jars to send out your product? Easy answer, recycling!
I'm so glad you asked this question. I've already answered it, but we thought long and hard about how to supply this product. The alternative to glass is obviously plastic. A big no-no in this day and age.
When you have used up your gel, you can reuse the jar for anything you like. It is recyclable of course. But even better than that, the jar can be used for jam or chutney, or any other food that needs a jar. My wife Jill and I use them in the garden extensively for next years seed, like peas, broad beans or runner beans. Dried fish food, cat biscuits or treats, nails, screws, garden liquids. The list of secondary uses is endless, which is the best way to honour the recycling code in my opinion.
These pictures are the results of my experiments
After taking the original photographs above, I allowed the plants to stay outside until it got too cold to leave them exposed and then put them all in the greenhouse for the winter. They were all in a row along the side wall, all equidistant from the glass to preserve light density, and so no pots were closer to the window than any other, which would have been colder and skewed the results.
These photos show the difference of: A control group that just had a cutting dipped in compost. One set had just aloe vera gel as the rooting hormone, and one set had the whole leaf, green and all, liquidized into a liquid gel.
These two photos are of the 4 pots that used the rooting gel, plain gel and whole leaf. The difference seemed minimal, suggesting all of the necessary ingredients are in the gel and not the green part of the leaf.
The photo on the left shows the good results. Compare this to the control photo of the pots that were just cuttings with no aloe gel. I think the difference is obvious. If you want to try the aloe rooting gel, please order from the buttons above. Thank you.
