Variegated Red Alder | It took me two years and 42 failures, but I managed to get roots to grow on a cutting from a variegated sport of red alder that I found deep in the rainforest. This has been an obsession of mine and I’m shocked it actually worked!

Two years ago, I stumbled upon a red alder on a solo expedition deep into the rainforest that had one branch with the most beautiful variegated leaves. It’s no secret that I’m the red alder’s biggest fan, as well as a plant obsessed horticulturist, so at first I thought maybe I

was hallucinating. I took six cuttings and left thinking I’d probably never make it back to such a faraway place. I struck the cuttings using two different treatments of indole-3-butyric acid based on the only information I could find about asexual propagation of

red alder, the 1989 paper ‘Softwood cuttings for propagation of red alder’ by M. A Radwan, T. A Max, and D. W. Johnson from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forestry Sciences Laboratory. I placed them in the mist tent and fine-tuned everything. The project was a complete

failure and ended at 14 days. The following winter, epic storms tore that part of the island apart and multiple landslides and flooding buried the road and pummelled bridges. Spring brought the loggers’ strike and the road was left as is for another year. This past June, I put

together a return expedition and after two flats and the complete removal of my truck’s exhaust system, I turned back. A month later, I tried again and after a long, rough drive, I left the truck and started hiking. To my utter amazement, I found the tree and it still had the

branch with variegated leaves. I was able to take 36 cuttings, leaving six side branches in case all 36 failed. I just needed ONE to grow roots. If the tree survived at all, it would be bulldozed when loggers cleared the road next. With the pressure to get it right, I planned six

different treatments using different growing media and IBA concentrations and applications. I HAND-MISTED them every three hours, even through the night. I first checked for roots at 21 days (per data included in cited paper) but found none. Same at 28 days, 35 days, and today at

105 days. But while taking a break from obsessing over the four cuttings that remained — in what really did seem like a hallucination — I found a second red alder with one branch of variegated leaves about 80 kilometres from the first one. I took coordinates and headed home to

do more ‘research’ before taking any cuttings because there would only be a couple. I decided to contact a nursery that was propagating a variegated sport of European black alder. Not the same, but any information would be useful. They were super generous with their time, but

unfortunately had never been able to grow them on their own roots; they’d been importing RED alder rootstock from Canada and bud grafting. My expectations were at an all-time low BUT my motivation was at an all-time high. I decided to try air-layering this new branch.

Part of that process required trimming any side branches, and I brought home the one I had to remove. I struck it using one of the treatments I used while failing 42 times out of 42 times and admittedly got a bit lazy with the misting. Today, after 67 days... ROOTS!

Variegated red alder ON ITS OWN ROOTS! Somebody get me my fainting couch.