This propagation method is suitable for any non-grafted plants that send up new shoots or suckers from their roots.  

Grafted plants are not suitable for this method of propagation, as suckers from grafted plants will be of the rootstock not the named cultivar. Suckers from the rootstock do not resemble the cultivar. They can occasionally be useful as rootstocks for

This involves joining the roots of one plant to the stem of another related plant, so they fuse together to form one plant. There are various methods, all requiring great skill. Grafting is mainly carried out by commercial growers to combine one plant’s qualities of flowering or fruiting (the upper section or scion) with the vigour or resilience of the other (the roots or rootstock). Fruit trees are often grafted, along with a few ornamental shrubs and trees, and in recent years grafted vegetable plants (mainly tomatoes, but also chillies, cucumbers, aubergines, etc) have become available.

Links

Grafting ornamental plants and fruit trees
Chip budding
T budding

• Loosen the soil around the sucker with a fork, and then carefully expose and lift the sucker and associated roots, being careful not to disturb the parent plant.
• Using sharp secateurs or a knife, sever the sucker, making sure that it has fibrous roots on the detached portion. Replace and firm the soil around the parent plant.
• Trim the sucker by removing the main root or stolon (creeping underground stem) up to the fibrous roots.
• Reduce long, leafy shoots by about half to limit drying out of the sucker after planting and to promote bushy re-growth.
• Plant the sucker into fertile, free-draining soil enriched with organic matter such as well-rotted garden compost, manure or leafmould. If potting up the sucker, multipurpose compost is fine to use.
• Water well after firming the soil around the roots. The roots are usually insufficient to sustain the plant without careful watering for the first season.

Establishment is usually the main problem. Very careful watering is needed for the first season as the roots of the suckers are not well developed.

Links

Trees and shrubs: establishment problems