Propagation Without Buying

A strawberry plant sends out a runner, a thin stem along the ground. Where it touches the soil, a new little plant grows roots, while the runner still feeds it from the parent. Snip the runner a few weeks later and you have a free strawberry plant.

Gardeners borrow that trick. Making a new plant from a piece of an old one, rather than from seed, is vegetative propagation. Division splits a plant that already has several rooted parts. A cutting has to grow the roots it's missing. Layering grows roots before the cut is made. The method has to suit the plant: not every piece of every plant can become a new one.