Request/ challenge: propagating

[violentglitter]

I haven't tried a completely bare branch, but my 3 year old got a hold of one of my small cayenne plants that had been in a solo cup for ages. the stem was pretty woody, and he snapped it off with some very jagged edges, some parts ripped up about 3-4" along the stem of the maybe 10" plant. Some leaves were very roughly torn off and I had NO hope for it. I had just up-potted it the day before and fed it some fish emulsion, and carelessly stuffed the thing deep in the dirt of the same pot expecting nothing. It rooted, and the very short woody stem started shooting out new branches.
 
That was pure beginner's luck. I'm sure if I purposely try to root something I really wanted to keep, I would fail miserably.

 

[Teaks]

This year I took in late september cuttings and put them in distilled water, changed the water every 3-4 days. No other tricks or techniques. The plants I took cuttings were a tepin and a Pimenta de Neyde. I'm happy to say that now I have 4 tepin clones and 3 PDN.

They're in my apartment, growing foliage under lights. Unfortunately I have a fungus gnats problem I'm dealing with, difficult to go away.

I can't stand these gnats. I have them in my tomato plant pot