Cuttings

Here, new plants are propagated by planting pieces of branch cut from the mother plant. It is the simplest of the four methods and needs no equipment at all.

Healthy branches should be selected from a plant that has borne fruit. A piece with no buds, flowers or fruit on it is more suitable — anything the cutting is still feeding draws on a food store it needs for growing roots, and it has no roots yet to replace what it spends.

Examples — rose, hibiscus, temple flower, Ixora, bougainvillea, croton.

This method is commonly used for some plants and fails outright for others, which is worth finding out before a season is wasted on it.