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The layering absolutely works. I've successfully transplanted about half a dozen. I first noticed it when a county grader had impaled a branch into a road berm and it had rooted. I just parted it off and transplanted the chunk of dirt. You can also expose buried roots to air and they'll sprout. Toyon will too. Then it's sever and transplant. They need support the first year as the root systems are weak. I make a tipi out of bamboo, a tiewrap, and some jute mat for partial shade and deer protection.

I just started the experiments with charate this spring. I dug some out of the edges of a burn pile and raked it in under a large manzanita bush. If I get germination in a year or two, voila! I'll have proof that boiling acid or fire scarification is unnecessary. Identifying the chemical brew that activates the seed would hake an analytical chemist, a lab, and a lot of time. Meanwhile, I hope to be getting plants.

Manzanita varies a great deal genetically; it is still a very dynamic genus. It is therefore very important to be careful about cultivars crossbreeding local stock (the pollen can travel a quarter mile). Hence the need to improve local propagation processes without requiring a fire. It's also important to teach local landowners not to mess with what they have genetically unless they know what they are doing and can confine the consequences until they do.

I don't like messing with native alleles. We have too much to learn from them to do that.