I would have dipped the distal end in wax or coated it with cut paste and put it in the fridge in damp sand or Turface until all the trees were dormant. Then, I would have buried it in the garden or beds. In spring, after the frost is out of the ground, I would have dug it up and either potted or planted it. Your tree will push foliage now, but it won't get mature enough to offer a return on the trees energy outlay, so the tree will wake up in spring with much lower energy reserves than if you had held off on rooting it. That may not be a big problem, because there are few trees with more genetic vigor than a willow, but it's not just vigor that comes into play. Vitality is also a key issue. I probably would have rooted it in bonsai soil, too. Here is something I wrote about rooting in water vs rooting in a solid, well-aerated medium. Again though, the trees natural level of vigor may sail in to save the day: Though roots form readily and often seemingly more quickly on many plants propagated in water, the roots produced are quite different from those produced in a soil-like or highly aerated medium (perlite - screened Turface - calcined DE - seed starting mix, e.g.). Physiologically, you will find these roots to be much more brittle than normal roots due to a much higher percentage of aerenchyma (a tissue with a greater percentage of inter-cellular air spaces than normal parenchyma). Aerenchyma tissue is filled with airy compartments. It usually forms in already rooted plants as a result of highly selective cell death and dissolution in the root cortex in response to hypoxic (airless - low O2 levels) conditions in the rhizosphere (root zone). There are 2 types of aerenchymous tissue. One type is formed by cell differentiation and subsequent collapse, and the other type is formed by cell separation without collapse ( as in water-rooted plants). In both cases, the long continuous air spaces allow diffusion of oxygen (and probably ethylene) from shoots to roots that would normally be unavailable to plants with roots growing in hypoxic media. In fresh cuttings placed in water, aerenchymous tissue forms due to the same hypoxic conditions w/o cell death & dissolution. Note too, that under hypoxic conditions, ethylene is necessary for aerenchyma to form. This parallels the fact that low oxygen concentrations, as found in water rooting, generally stimulate trees and other plants to produce ethylene. For a long while it was believed that high levels of ethylene stimulate adventitious root formation, but lots of recent research proves the reverse to be true. Under hypoxic conditions, like submergence in water, ethylene actually slows down adventitious root formation and elongation. If you wish to eventually plant your rooted cuttings in soil, it is probably best not to root them in water because of the frequent difficulty in transplanting them to soil. The brittle "water-formedâ roots often break during transplant & those that don't break are very poor at water absorption and often die. The effect is equivalent to beginning the cutting process over again with a cutting in which vitality has likely been reduced. If you do a side by side comparison of cuttings rooted in water & cuttings rooted in soil, the cuttings in soil will always (for an extremely high percentage of plants) have a leg up in development on those moved from water to a soil medium for the reasons outlined above. Al

desertdance - funny but it's not a "used car lot" just happened to be they were havning a bunch of people over the day I took the pic. Typically there's only 1-2 vehicles there although I still would like to block just about everyone from sight. I really like my privacy! tibu - I'll check that tree out a bit. I'm a little nervous about it being in the weeping willow tree family which my husband is extremely opposed to. I'm pushing it to think about putting in a dwarf weeping cherry! I agree with the suggestions that I would prefer to grow the magnoila as a tree instead of a bush. One thing about that window. I'm not opposed to blocking it because it's a window to a laundry/bathroom and it would be nice to have some privacy in there. While I can put up blinds, I thought that it wouldn't be bad to block the window with a tree a bit although I would not want it fully blocked. What would be your suggestions for what I should plant in front of the double windows on the far right of the house? This is a north facing bedroom. The area of the garden there is so big that it feels like it needs a tree but I don't want it to totally block the window. I was considering something like a tina crabapple if the weeping cherry would be too big which it sounds like it would. Am I wrong to consider putting a tree here? If I don't, what would I do with all of this space? I believe it's about 19' between the house and the garden edging and it's about the same width.

I may be wrong, but I have been told that the pussy willows can deal with soil of average moisture, down to positively wet soil! Even so, if you can, put it in an area that gets a fair bit of natural moisture (runoff, etc.), rather than on the highest point of your yard. You WILL have to water it well (a gallon or more) when first planted out, every few days for the first 2 weeks, and then cut back to weekly (unless it's rained) for the next few months, until the end of Nov. If it's another mild winter, or if you are on sandy soil, I would keep on watering, lightly, in the winter, and then more heavily as it leafs out, through next summer, when the roots should have grown enough to cut back on watering to every few weeks. Newly planted trees SHOULD be watered weekly for the first 2 years, although most of us consider them lucky if the watering gets done at all after the first 6 months!! That said, I did water a bunch of my trees/shrubs that had been planted for more than 18 mo. over this summer, to stave off stress from the NASTY combination of very high heat and no rain for 3-4 months! Mulching around the tree, out to 3-4' will help with the watering, keeping the soil evenly moist. Just DON'T put any mulch closer to the trunk than 3-6 inches, and don't pile it higher than 6 inches. Mulch next to the trunk invites fungus anad rotting, and deeper than 6" prevents the free exchange of gasses/oxygen through the soil. You want to encourage the roots to grw out as widely as possible. Oh yeah, DON'T plant any willow next to your water lines or your septic system. They DO like water, and their roots will infiltrate the system.

Willows as a rule need a pretty wet soil, they are native along streams, rivers, and lakes, swamps, wet places. If your soil is not fairly wet the tree may be dying from dehydration.