Use the bag! It's not just decoration. It keeps the atmosphere around the cuttings moist so they don't transpire too much and dry up. It also means you don't have to keep watering the cuttings and running the risk of over doing it and causing them to rot.

The technique in the film looks fine to me except I'd get a lot more than 4 cuttings off that pant.

I looked at the video and it was OK. The bagging or tenting with clear plastic, is a must for softwood or greenwood cuttings. It will take a month or more to root and be able to draw up moisture from the new roots to keep the stem and any leaf material turgid. This means that the humidity of the air around the cutting must be kept close to 100%. For home propagators that means tenting to keep the moisture. Why don't you want to tent, when the video clearly shows it is required? Al

Ok, I'll try it again, tenting this time, and I'll report back with my results. Thanks.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Weblog

It's interesting, I also tried rooting them in clear water and that didn't work either. So much for easy... ;)

Now that you are convinced tenting is necessary lets mention venting. With the warm humidity under your tent fungus in the form of mold, is quite likely to grow. It is almost impossible to have a starting medium with no fungus spores included. I always remove my tents every other day and turn them inside out, before putting them back on, as this removes the excess moisture, in the form of condensation, on the inside of the tent. When I first started propagating cuttings I would leave the tent off for 20 minutes or so before putting it back. Believe it or not, this is long enough to allow the the cutting(especially soft wood cuttings)to wilt, from which they have a struggle to recover. Al