Many people only use soft green growth for propagating new plants. Like you, I find that they are way more susceptible to rot. Soft cuttings can't be rooted in water. Some people use straight perlite. I use a mix of soil and perlite, about half & half. Keep the container with the cuttings covered but you need to make sure that it doesn't stay too moist. It's a fine line between just enough humidity and too much.

Rooting new shoots is little bit tricky - in most cases the cuttings get cracked.
The is a new methode using with root riots that work fine.

I do root new growth in water (no hormone) but you have to make sure the water is changed frequently and do it under lights if it is still cool out. The other trick is to make sure the ends of the green cuttings do not dry out. Since the whole cutting is green it will lose moisture all along the stem etc. So to solve that problem, I used tall glasses/jars and put some clear seran wrap over the tops.
Here are a few old old pics of some small and some tiny ones lol.

1 oz clear medicine cup
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Example of tall glass container with seran wrap over the top. Just put a tiny amt of water in the bottom and change daily.
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Roots showing on green cutting.
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Thanks for the help I have one plant I would like to propagate and the hard freeze came before I got time to take cuttings. There are plenty of new shoots if I can get them to start. The pictures are a big help.

Excellent advice!
Thanks!
kasha77

This is awesome information for this time of the year. It needs to be kept in the forefront of the forum for a while. I am going to do this to replenish some of my stuff that got frozen.
Bill

Thanks for the pictures! This is excellent information.

Lynette I broke a small piece of my B. arborea off by accident. It's a tiny green stem so I decided to try your method using the medicine cup. It seems to be doing well and the arborea isn't the easiest for me to root even using mature stems.

I have used both soft green tip cuttings, and stem cuttings with equal success.
For the tips, I use new, clean potting mix, and new, clean pots, typically 4 inch. Fill with soil and water well. Then I stick the tips and water well again. The soil mix should now be thoroughly wet. I will remove the large leaves, leaving only the smaller ones, to reduce the stress on the cutting. I then cover them with a white paper towel (my house it is Brawny). I have also used an old T shirt, a sheet of newspaper, a piece of cheesecloth and a hunk of old sheet to cover them with. I just lay it on top, to provide a bit of shade. Resist the temptation to water them, remember, there are no roots to use the water right now, so, DO NOT WATER, UNLESS VERY DRY. They will look sad and droopy for about 14 to 17 days, but you will see them start to perk up by then. They perk up because they now have roots. I have 99% success with this.
With stem cuttings, I cut the stems into sections, cutting right above the leaf, getting 5 or 6 out of each section of stem. The cuttings will have a bud at one end, and just stem on the other, mine are about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long. I stick them into 4 inch pots, new clean ones, with new clean potting soil (I like Pro-Mix) with the bud end UP above the soil just a bit. Water very well twice, to fully wet the soil mix and then only if very dry. Will look awful for about two weeks, but then they will perk up and be fine.
Do not be surprised if some of the leaves yellow over the course of rooting, very typical. If you want, you can mist them a few times a day, seems to help the tip cuttings look better, but even if you do not, they still root 99%.
The trick is to fully wet the soil mix, and then give some shade to the cuttings for about 14 to 17 days.

Didn't make it. Oh well. It was only about 2". Next time I knock into it I'll have to snap off a bigger piece. lol