As everyone's stock portfolio has shrunk, you’re probably looking for ways to cut back and save money in your monthly budget. On the other hand, you’d love to add lots of those expensive host and nectar plants to your yard to bring in butterflies. You can save money and add pricey plants with a little bit of ingenuity. Here’s how I do it.

A friend recently asked me to provide him with eight Butterfly Bushes, Buddleia davidii.

I went online at the Jackson and Perkins site, and eight of the Butterfly Bushes would have cost him $135.60 + around $15.00 for shipping. I told him I’d supply him with the plants for no charge.
No, I’m not a lottery winner.
What I’ve learned through experimentation is that butterfly bushes are extremely easy to propagate from cuttings during the early spring. Here are the basics which can be applied to propagating many plants.

14 Step Plant Propagation Checklist

1. Buy a soilless potting mix (without fertiizer if possible) and rooting hormone from your local garden supply store.
2. Cut off tender, young, healthy, thick shoots, three inches or longer, from the plant in early spring.
3. Remove the bottom leaves and many of the top leaves. You want to eliminate a lot of the surface area.
4. Place these cuttings in a glass of water temporarily.
5. Take your cuttings inside out of the sun.
6. Put the vermiculite mixture in a four to six inch pot and water the mix until saturated.
7. Poke holes in the vermiculite about an inch deep with a pencil .
8. Remove cuttings from water and dip them into the rooting hormone.
9. Put each cutting into a pencil hole and firm the vermiculite around the cutting.
10. Place all cuttings into your pot as described and mist the leaves with water.
11. Cover the pot with a plastic bag and secure with a rubber band.
12. Place pot on a saucer and fill the saucer with water. Keep it filled.
13. Place the pot where it can get plenty of light.
14. You should have roots in two weeks. Transplant cuttings to normal potting soil.

Note . . . I also propagate using miniature greenhouse seed-starting kits.