Really, all it takes is cutting off a piece of a plant and sticking it in water for awhile. Some plants, particularly herbs, will just sprout roots. There's a gel you can buy for cloning to encourage the little amputation to put down roots that supposedly works well. We bought some at a shop in Adams Morgan called Urban Sustainable. Even if you never grow squat, check this place out if you're a Washingtonian -- it's one huge science project pretending to be a storefront, with hydroponic vats and grow lamps everywhere. The woman working the floor also talks like Michael Caine, which is fun. I'm tempted so smear some of this cloning gel on myself but I won't because it's friggin expensive -- in the neighborhood of $15. But a little supposedly goes a long way. The Urban Sustainable folks have about a dozen basil plants growing happily that were spawned from a dab of clone goo at the open plant wound.
We didn't have any plants around to sever so we tried a little experiment - we stuck twigs of rosemary that we bought at the grocery store in some water. Low and behold, even without the clone helper they sprouted roots. Next, we dabbed the goo on the ends of supermarket thyme. Results this time were poor, as no roots have formed -- although the thyme's still green and happy in the jar. The rosemary looked good enough after a few weeks that we stuck it in some actual soil. It seems to be doing just fine:
Ok, so the one on the right is doing fine and has new growth. But 50% ain't bad for this operation. The best conclusion to pull from all of this is probably just that rosemary would grow on the dark side of Pluto. Too bad I almost never use it in my cooking. Clearly, though, even without outdoor space we could keep this sucker going to be a useful little plant.
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