The plants that I've bought that had been rooted in commercial rooting oasis were Poinsettias and Mums. None are planned to be long range plants.
The problem I see is that the oasis stays very wet and the wetness promotes rot. The commercial stuff (I have a box of it) has some rot inhibitors in it. But the things I wanted to root, didn't.
From my childhood, the common quince (the one that can be forced to bloom in winter) would put out roots in water esp if some charcoal were added to the water to keep it sweet.

Generally plants that grow in water naturally are the ones that should be grown in water. Most plants either will not grow in water at all or do poorly there. It's kind of like growing a person in water. People, like plants, need water to live but it's not the environment we are made to stay in. Even the plants, like coleus, that do root in water will do better if planted in soil/dirt/other similar media. The roots coleus grow in water are of low quality and will not support the plant as well as roots grown in soil.

If you want to grow flowering quince from cuttings, it's easiest to take hardwood cuttings in fall to mid winter. Wound (smash a little) the lower end of the stem and dip in rooting hormone. I would plant in about 2/3 good soiless potting mix and 1/3 sand. I use the sand Home Depot sells for pool filtering because it is real sand with a neutral pH. Keep the soil moist and cool. You should have a very high success rate using this method.

You can also grow flowing quince from softwood cuttings in late spring to early summer (pretty easy), root cuttings in mid fall to early spring (very easy), ground layering (very easy), air layering (pretty easy), and of course from seeds (very easy).

Something else to bear in mind with water-rooting, that I've learned through trial and error more with Brugmansias than any other type of plant, is that at the first sign of root development (nubbies, lenticels, etc. at the nodes) - get those cuttings out of the water and into the preferred medium for the type of plant. Some things can take a long time in water before giving out any indication of root development and the best you can do is change the water out daily/keep it clean (I usually rinse the cuttings as well as wiping or scrubbing the container when changing out the water), pay close attention to any signs of softening or outright rot, take note of the light conditions (I have generally had better success with filtered or diffused light or northlight like my ficus benjamina prefers to grow in), removing all but one or two leaves of any given cutting, and exposing as many nodes as possible in the water with a bit of wounding - for harder/woodier cuttings, I cut on a slant and/or mash/crush the end - the latter has provided the most success when I've wanted to root a pretty rose I was given as a cut flower, those have also taken the longest to indicate any rooting for me - but roses aren't my speciality either (I'll jump into them at some point I'm sure with gusto). I have also trialed different colours of containers for water-rooting - clear, green, blue, red, purple, etc. and have found myself making back-of-the-brain mental notes about what coloured containers have seemed to have an effect on different plants. The last thing, and this is just a general rule with *my* experience, is that I keep cuttings in water at root temperature (which is relatively cool for me) - warmer temps have only proven to be more prone to rot 90% of the time for my trials and errors.

I had to chuckle a bit about the comments on Coleus and water rooting. I had a cutting last year that somehow ended up in with my water lettuce - the water lettuce was supporting the leaves of the coleus while the stem was submerged... the coleus developed an impressive radiating "beard" of roots... but it was there so long that when I tried putting it into a terrestrial medium, it nearly died - I put it back in water and it did fine - until the leaves were no longer supported, then it rotted. Water-rooted roots tend to be rather delicate or fragile with non-aquatic plants, which is why at the first sign of rooting they should be potted up. But that coleus sure proved to me that it could almost pass itself as an aquatic plant. :) Probably the closest I will ever get to hydroponics LOL

Sounds reasonable....planting at the first sign of root growth. This wouldn't work for most types of plants (they just won't root in water), but it does sound like good advise for the ones that will.

Mona does it and it was part of her lecture at one of our MTPS's. I'm sure that she would be happy to help.

Quince is hard to root, and in my experience, just will NOT root in Oasis foam. (In fact, I haven't been able to root quince in ANYTHING, LOL!)

Oasis foam works WONDERFULLY for some things, like pasifloras.

I've water-rooted (successfully) roses, camellia, a variety of woody shrubs... that aren't aquatics by any stretch of the imagination, plus of course more commonly known to water-root plants.... there's no "set" rule on how long in the water before seeing root development though... the only thing for sure is keeping the water and container clean.

Mind you, my water-rooting efforts might have been more successful than other people's for one basic reason (leastwise this seemed to be it with one particular variety many years ago tried by a trial-group of folks)... my household water is spring water... it's not treated at all, heck, I don't even filter it anymore... so what plants get from the spring water in the area, is what my plants and cuttings and such get from my "tap"... a whole array of micro-life and nutrients I'm sure. But other people's water unquestionably varies... so bear that in mind. I tend to take the spring water for granted since getting back here to the hill and getting off of city water from various other residences in the past. Well, I take it for granted up to the point that I am exposed to city water... yeach!

Hermit, no one said that only aquatics would root in water or that there was a set rule about how long one should leave the cuttings in water. There is however science that allows us to obtain answers about questions such as how best to root certain plants. It is simply fact, that most plants, and particularly woody shrubs, are NOT best rooted in water. It is fact that the roots produced in water (yes even spring water) are far inferior to roots produced by rooting cuttings in a soil type media. The studies have already been done for us. All we have to do these days is hop on the internet or get a good book on the subject and we can benefit from years of research done by experts in the field!

The brief instructions I gave on my previous post are in line with what the experts say. Flowering quince is best propagated by one of the techniques I mentioned previously and success is highly likely. If your goal is to experiment for yourself, then by all means, try whatever technique you like, but if you want to root flowering quince, there are ways that have been proven to be far superior than trying to grow them in water.

I distinctly recall commenting about moving to a preferred medium at the first sign of development - like before actual roots form and I myself commented fairly blatantly about the delicate and fragile nature of roots grown in water-rooting. As far as the "experts"... you'll have to watch that one. Most of the "experts" became labeled as such through trial and error. As for Flowering Quince, if you will notice in any of my posts here, I don't comment on any interest in it. I have no interest in it, save some Quince seeds I have staying cool right now. As far as woody plants and water-rooting - what is published is just that, what is published. I've never published any of my trials in water rooting the plethora of experiments with such. If I had or did, it would no doubt throw off the statistics immensely... or *chuckle* be refuted as "impossible" by some so-called experts. :)

Now, having babbled on all of that - the problem was that a method was seemingly not working, and so all I sought to do was provide some information and experience that if attempted, MIGHT yield some positive results - unless of course they weren't tried simply because of statistics by experts basically saying something wouldn't work.

It never hurts to try - especially when everything else is failing.

HotH
"Tesla had days like this."

Hermit, I misread your comment about seeing roots appear. I even read it twice and still misread it the other day. After rereading it today, I see you didn't say what I thought you did.

So far as the "experts" go, you can frequently look at their credentials to get a good idea about how well they can be trusted. There are some non-experts out there, but they can often be seen for what they are with a minimal amount of research. As for the real experts, if one has spent years scientifically studying the best way to propagate a plant and produce results from their research then it wouldnÂt hurt to learn from and use their work and knowledge.

My general comments were, experiment if you want to experiment, but there are scientifically established techniques if your goal is to grow cuttings rather than experiment. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel, unless you just want to prove to yourself that the round wheel rolls better than the square one. And again, it doesn't hurt to try out those different "wheel shapes" if you want to double check for yourself; it just depends on your goal.

i have had really good luck rooting quince in 5 gallon buckets.
fill halfway with slightly damp soil, insert the cuttings and place a large clear plastic bag over the top. set in a cool,shady location and forget about it for about a month.
most cuttings show new growth and tend to be 'firm' when tugged on.
time to pot them up or set them out.