so very helpful, I appreciate it! May have to watch a few youtube vids, though!

I never did...Utube didn't exist back then. I heard the word "Rooting Hormone" and someone gave me a brief description at the store and it has been all experimentation after that. I used to cut the salvias and just put them back in the ground under the salvia I took them off of.

It is a great way to extend your garden because you can share at plant swaps and get plants you don't have.

I'm a big multiplier myself! After years of some success, some not so success, I finally took a class at the Dallas Arboretum where someone recommended pinching off the top tip of the cutting. Something about forcing a cycle of hormone back to the base of the cutting…? Not sure the scientific reason, but it seems that it initiates faster root growth. You might want to try it and see if you agree.

Mara, thanks for the excelent tutorial. The recent high humidity has been perfect weather for rooting. I should be rooting some stuff, but have been too busy trying to carve out a garden from the jungle out there.

Christopher, that's interesting about pinching the top off. I do that, but it was because the tender tip looses moisture easily. It wants to wilt right away and you want to keep as much moisture in the cutting as possible. Maybe I was doing it for the wrong reason and it worked! Also if it is a big leafed plant I cut some of the leaves in half as well as removing some of the lower leaves to provide less area from which moisture can escape.

Bostedo, that a good article on rooting in water. I was at my neighbor Georgianne's house and noticed one of those big stuff yuccas in a five gallon bucket of water. I asked what she was doing and she said "I'm rooting it". I said, "You don't root yuccas in water". She pulled it up and it had foot long roots on it. So that's how much I know about rooting ... LOL

I started poppies with lots of seeds and I just recently thinned them out and when I separated them I put rooting hormone on the new roots and put them in smaller pots and they are doing well. I did this some other small seedlings as well and they are healthy.

Interesting use of the rooting hormone. Thank you. My mind had not gone there.

The thing I did not see clearly in all those tutorial videos or instructions (that I saw before, not about this thread) was about how to make a cutting. I thought, cut it, call it a cutting, plant it, it's good to go. But I would have many failures.

In fact, many plants do need a correct cutting also. The thing I learned later, which is good to use for any cutting even if the plant roots easily from other parts, is to have at least 2 leaf nodes (more is fine, just plant deeper like OP does, as well as I do that sometimes, too). Take off the bottom leaves, leave the top leaves. That's your cutting. When planted, be sure to plant that bottom node in the ground, since that is where roots will come out of.

I used to plant just the lower stem (no leaf nodes), thinking that was sufficient. They would seem to stay alive when there was the covering for humidity, but never did well after weeks when I thought it would have rooted and took off the covering.

Some plants do make roots from other parts and some do it more easily, even without rooting hormone, but if you take that kind of cutting to start, you'll have a better chance. From there, you can learn more about each specific kind of plant and how differently they can be rooted.

Once I had a better understanding of the cuttings, I was able to root more successfully in various types of soil medium. Some people will have their favorites, but the experimenter in me tried different types, and found that all the ones I tried worked just fine. Again, the main thing was back to the cuttings and how to protect them until they rooted.

Because of the tendency of the plants to make roots at leaf nodes, it's possible that some plants, if you cover their stem with soil or a medium that simulates the soil, they will make roots right there while still attached to the mother plant. Once they get their roots, you can snip it off. Salvias and many vining plants are a popular plant which can work like this.

So sometimes when I see a particularly long branch, I no longer just automatically turn it into a cutting. I sometimes make a new plant that way first, then snip.

When do you take cuttings? What month is best in the south?

What plant. Most want the cuttings taken in the spring, before flowering , and before it gets hot. But you need to research propagating each species because their may be slight differences . Like do you want green soft new growth or woody growth. Sometimes one can google your species and propagation of________..

I've had good luck using a 2:1 mix of perlite/vermiculite as the rooting medium. I use clear 2L or 3L soda bottles, cut similarly to Mara's example above, to keep the humidity high. Most salvias root very easily this way (good ball of roots within 2-3 weeks, ready to transplant). After I notice roots, I'll slowly harden them off by leaving a larger gap between the top and bottom of the bottle.

I have some marginally hardy salvias that I take cuttings of every fall to ensure I have some around the following spring. I would root Philippines violets this way until I discovered they root pretty easily just using water or sticking cuttings directly in potting soil. I rooted some cuttings of bay laurel last fall and those took months to root. It was mostly an experiment as a co-worker brought in a bunch of branches to work after trimming their tree. I'm guessing since those are fairly slow growing, that contributed to the rooting time.

I have found that autumn sage and firebush (hamelia patens) root much quicker and more reliably with bottom heat, so I will use a heating pad underneath my rooting containers for those.

Google is your friend when it comes to tips and information on how to root different varieties of plants.