Of course! Why wouldn't they be? If you're worried about it, however, next time just use pure honey instead of rooting hormone. To make rooting hormone soak the yellow-tipped shoots of a weeping willow tree in water. A tea made from the bark of a willow tree is also effective. When using the shoots or bark soak them for 24 hours prior to using. Rooting hormone is usually sold as indole butyric acid (IBA). It simply encourages the cuttings to form new roots.

I made several hardwood cuttings of Vitex agnus-castus (Chaste Tree) on November 8, 2007. They were then dipped in Green Light Rooting Hormone (purchased at Lowe's)and placed in styrafoam cups of 1/2 peat moss and 1/2 perlite mix, watered, and placed in a plastic zip-lock bag. First growth appeared November 21, 2007. Since then several cuttings have sprouted new leaves. As an experiment I cut several more today and repeated the process. I'll check them in a few weeks. I will try to cut a few more pieces some time in December and repeat the whole process. Needless to say there are no leaves on the plant at this time. The cutting are 3 to 4 inch pieces from a 12 inch branch. They are in the laundry room (no direct sun)on a shelf with a 60 watt bulb left on 24/7 temperature is a constant 70F +/- 5F

There might be benefits in some cases, e.g. has anti-fungal and antiseptic qualities, but I think it a bit of a stretch to call it a hormone. Nevertheless the word ''hormone'' has taken on quite a few new meanings in the last half century or so.

I used the Dip 'n Grow yesterday. They recommend a weak solution for softwood cuttings such as I usually take. They advise only putting the cutting in the solution for 3 to 5 seconds. I guess the cutting must take up the hormone in that amount of time. I might call their help line and ask them about that. Since I'm thinking that soaking a cutting awhile might help, maybe an extremely diluted Dip 'n Grow solution would work for that. When people make willow water I'm sure the concentration of hormone varies a lot but I bet it's weak. The directions on Dip 'n Grow also say to throw out any unused solution after ten hours. Has anyone tested that to see if it loses effectiveness that quickly? I'm thinking maybe a little of it could be added to a gallon of water and used to water recalcitrant cuttings. I still have some old rose cuttings I took in winter or Feb. which are just sitting there. Mostly it's the old roses like gallicas, centifolias, or mosses that are hard to root. Most modern roses root easily. Some of the old ones root easily. Yesterday I scrubbed pots and chlorined them before putting sand in them and sticking cuttings. Some of my cuttings rot before they can root. That's one reason I don't do anything to add humidity...they rot more if in a plastic bag, for example. But there might be something I can do differently to combat rot. Maybe use a different medium than sand. I tried potting soil, no better. Maybe coir. There is a little rooting block thing..I forget the name of it, that might be worth a try.