trying to turn my thumb green

I am trying to grow things.  I have had some successes and some failures.  If we were keeping score the deer would probably have 50 points, the voles 10, and the slugs 5.  I haven't given up despite losing some plants to animals, the lack of water two summers ago, and my ignorance.  I am getting better.  This summer I wanted to experiment with rooting hormone.  I love hydrangeas and I am determined to grow some.  I have lost countless ones to the deer since they are like crack for deer, and the one day I forget to spray they get devoured.  I have had some luck with two plants, or I should say I did, until I moved around the plants and put the butterfly bush where the hydrangea was, which gave the deer much better access to the plant and they mowed it down to the ground, we will have to wait and see if comes back this spring.  Anyways, I would love to have lots hydrangea plants so I started experimenting with the rooting hormone because replacing eaten ones can get expensive.  My mom has a large hydrangea at her house and I always pick some blooms for decoration.  When the blooms had wilted I cut off the flower, dipped the stem in rooting hormone, and stuck it in a pot of soil.  I didn't think that it would work since I had seen a pin on Pinterest that suggested you cut the leave in half and cover it with plastic and on and on.  I was amazed when a couple of weeks later I had new leaves growing and that I now had a whole new plant, well actually 4 plants. 

I immediately went out to my current hydrangea and made to more cuttings so I could have even more plants.  I also cut part of my butterfly bush, some lavender, and some rosemary.  The butterfly bush also grew more leaves, but the herbs rotted or just died, so 2 wins and 2 losses.  By the beginning of October, two of my hydrangeas were pretty large in size so I transplanted them into my flowerbed. 

Unfortunately the deer mowed them down immediately, but I still had four plants that I took them inside to winter indoors.  I was afraid that after all my hard work of cutting and watering and taking great care this summer that during the  winter I would kill them, but they are holding their own.  They aren't growing a lot which makes sense, there isn't that much sun in the winter, but they are still alive and hopefully I will be able to transplant them this spring, behind a deer fence of course.  I can't wait for warm weather to begin more rooting experiments, I don't have a lot of room to experiment inside so I need to wait for spring.  So maybe this summer will be my year, just maybe.