In the late '60s, my parents bought a home in Pearl City for a whopping five-figure sum. The yard was a smooth carpet of grass shaded by two huge mango trees. Nothing else. In no time, with my grandmother's tenacity, the landscape quickly changed with the appearance of roses, dracaena, starfruit, gardenia, sour sap, achiote, ti leaf and more.

That old science experiment in which a potato is suspended by toothpicks halfway into a jar of water until roots sprouted? My grandmother, whom we called “;Nanay,”; was the Mad Scientist, and our kitchen window sill, her laboratory. It was crowded with plastic cups and jars full to the brim with water, each with its own plant cutting.

Little pruning shears were her friend. At family outings, she'd eye some blooming specimen, slip the shears in the closest grandchild's hand and say in her native Tagalog, “;Go, get a cutting.”; After all, back then, who'd bemoan a child for snipping a lovely flower—with a solid branch—from a public garden, for her petite, endearing grandmother? (Kids, try this at home only, please.) If there were “;keep off the grass”; signs, we'd have to translate and say, not this time. She'd simply shrug her slender shoulders. Next time.

For using cuttings, Nanay gets a green thumbs up from Alma Phocas, a primary plant propagator of the Honolulu Botanical Gardens, a division of the Department of Parks and Recreation. Phocas is in charge of growing rare and endangered plants showcased in the gardens.

“;Growing plants from cuttings is one of the best and easiest ways to do so,”; she said. “;It's better than propagating from seeds.”;

Phocas, an arborist who studied forestry, is teaching a class Thursday at Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden on basic techniques of propagating plants using cuttings, divisions and air layers.

“;The beauty of using cutting and air layering is that you get part of a mature plant, so it takes only a few months to flower,”; she said. “;With seedlings it takes longer.”;

Plus, it's thrifty. “;It's an easy way of creating plants from those you already have; you don't have to buy.”;

The 10 to 11 a.m. class is the last in a series of four plant propagating classes the gardens offers every three months. Call 233-7323 to register. The next series begins in the summer.

“;The classes we offer are free. It's our way of helping the aina and teaching the community to become better propagators,”; said Phocas, who has a masters degree in environmental science.

The class will also cover techniques of seed propagation, what plants take best to the cuttings method and which thrive using air layering.

“;With air layering, you 'wound' the stem, put a moist moss on the wound, wrap that with foil, and then when it grows roots after three to four weeks, cut it from the mother plant.”;

Nanay apparently was fortunate with the rugged cuttings her grandchildren presented because, according to Phocas, you have to know where to cut.

“;Some plants, like ti leaf, do really well, just put the stem in a glass of water and it grows roots. But others with hard stems don't really root well. Sometimes you have to cut a specific part of the stem, a little bit below the node.”;

Just as with people and offspring, seeds of the mother plant don't often produce the same kind of flower or fruit as the original. With cuttings or air layering, however, one can practically get a clone of the mother plant, said Phocas.

A walk through Nanay's old garden will attest to this. It's like a walk down memory lane. The pink rose bush is as blush as the one picked during the Three Ring Circus from the Honolulu International Center, now the Blaisdell Center. The red rose, vibrant as it was in the garden of a Waikiki hotel where a family friend held a wedding reception.

“;If you want the same quality of flower and fruit as the plant that your neighbor has, this is the best method,”; Phocas said. “;If your neighbor has sweet citrus, for example, and you take the seeds from that fruit and plant them, then you might be shocked and wonder 'how come my neighbor's fruit is sweeter than mine?'”;