Growing cuttings in place

Dear friends with much more experience.

What would be the best for this experiment or process?

I want to take a hori hori or mattock, open a berm, add X medium to fill the hole and jab a cleanly cut, scored cutting.

I want to try hardwood mulch finely shreded, sawdust, perlite,
Vermiculite, sand.

What do you think could work the best and why?

I want to do (1) step more than jab in the cutting, add a layer of X medium to give higher success rate. I am willing to try them all, has anyone done something like this or speculation is welcome . I just like to keep things simple.

For rooting inducement I will use natural herbs or probiotic sources please no worries about store bought chems or anything. In other words, dont tell me buy root hormone I like like non “labratorial factorial” ways. Thanks!

Two years ago I planted shelling peas and needed support for them. So I cut watersprouts off a mature Cox's Orange Pippin apple tree and pushed them into the ground shortly after cutting them. The soil in that row was recently amended from raw clay using either horse manure or mushroom manure; I don't remember which. But out of 50 or 75 cuttings I have two 2 year old seedlings. While they may not be enough of a success for commercial work; to me it's a wonderful bonus to the pea harvest. I used nothing to assist rooting.

To propagate cuttings in place, do what is often called the "sand trench method" or just "trench method". Dig a 6 inch deep trench or hole wherever you want to do it and then fill it with sand, then use a standard misting bed setup over the top of that (misting timer, misters, and some kind of removable cover that can to keep the cuttings significantly shaded while the cuttings haven't yet rooted. If they take, the roots will grow through the sand into the soil below.

I've heard of this method being used to grow hedges in England.

It really depends what plants you are trying to propagate, and the condition of your soil.

some plants root so readily that you do not need any special preparation (currants and figs come to mind). With those sorts of plants, I would think it best not to do any soil amendment, the plant will grow stronger surrounded by the native soil than it would in a pocket of amendments which the roots might not want to grow beyond.

Others may need more pampering to get the roots growing, particularly in heavy or compacted soil.