Tender is what you want. the more woody or hard a stem is the longer it takes. Our clones are in 1 inch rockwool cubes in a smal plastic pan about 1 inch deep. Soaked and PH'ed the rockwool. Take cuttings maybe take the bottom leaf off use some root hormone and push all the way to the bottom of rockwool. Keep a 1/4 inch of water in the pan and set in warm place 78f is good. Less than a week later almost half have roots starting, all other will have roots by 2 weeks. We have tried many cloners and this is what works almost 100 percent. I had some extra ones that I just stuck down in the water next to the rockwool and they are the first to root and no hormones or are there ?

Some cut some of the leaf off and some like mostly stem. Some use hormone and some don't. The point of your rooting gel is just to like seal the cut and get a little hormone started up the stem. Yes it is gong to wash off quickly but then it is in your water so it does keep working.

Come on in the water is fine.