Question
a person at a home and garden show recently told me that if you boil the limbs and leaves of a weeping willow tree, it will make excellent fertilizer for your plants. Is this true?

Answer
Indole-3-Butyric Acid -- 'IBA' -- is the most popular synthetic auxin in use for rooting plant cuttings.  It stimulates root growth, but it's also less poisonous in big doses than its popular predecessors, Naphthalene Acetic Acid and Indole-3 Acetic Acid.

Although IBA is the key ingredient in most of today's commercial rooting hormone formulas, it occurs naturally in several plant species.  This website posts pictures and step by step instructions for your little project:

www.weekendgardener.net/2007/05/make-your-own-rooting-hormone-with.htm

Willows useful trees.  Lovely, of course, but handy around the house, too.  The bark contains Salicin, which is used in Aspirin.  Who knew?

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER