Dear Gian,

generally the cuttings of resinous plants are difficult to take root, especially if you take woody branches; you can try in late spring to take some semi-woody cuttings, or the tips of the newly developed twigs, which are still green, without the thick and hard bark. As for the magnolia, on the other hand, you can take spring woody seed cuttings or try woody cuttings in late summer. proceeds by taking several cuttings, even 15-20 for each plant, so that the chances of success are raised, and also so that it is possible to choose among the rooted cuttings the most vigorous and luxuriant ones. , then they are portioned into cuttings about 5-7 cm long, which contain inside them at least a couple of internodes, or tufts of needles; a special cutting knife is used for cutting, which has a very sharp blade, which must first of all be very clean and sharp, to avoid transmitting diseases to future cuttings. it should be cut with a V-shaped or oblique apex, so that it exposes as large a portion to the air as possible, and the page of all the remaining leaves is halved; a tray is prepared for the rooting of the cuttings, filled with a mixture of washed river sand and peat in equal parts, which must be watered before placing the cuttings, so that it is very moist to the depth. immerses in the rooting hormone and inserts them into the moist soil prepared previously.The cutting tray should be kept in a warm and humid place, not exposed to direct sunlight, but bright enough. ; the cuttings should begin to root within a few weeks.What is the rooting hormone and what is it for? Inside the plants, as in other living beings, there are vessels that in addition to nutrients and water also transport hormones; some of these hormones explain to each single cell what its function is within the plant. In this way we have cells of the hard and woody bark, cells of the leaves, cells of the roots. A cell that is at the apex of a stem already knows that when it grows up it will become a bark, not a root; therefore we inform the tissues of our cutting, through the rooting hormone, which should instead develop roots, not another stem. (unscientific and completely metaphorical explanation) The cutting is one of the simplest and most fun practices of plant propagation, in my opinion in many cases even simpler than sowing; after having prepared some small plants through cuttings, you can evaluate the possibility of preparing young bonsai by layering, methods of propagation that require a little additional work, but which can give excellent results.