This group of milkweed relatives consists mostly of ground crawlers who don't tolerate buried stems. They also survive very long times without water, so it is better to let them get and stay dry between waterings while establishing cuttings. I have talked to plant people who put cuttings into pockets of their field clothes and forgot them for many months. The cuttings were still viable and grew!
If your plant is like most, with growths hanging off the edge of the pot, look at the undersides of the hanging stems. Many will have root bumps forming. I find it easier to work with smaller, rather than larger, cuttings of this plant. It grows so fast when happy there will be no difference in a year. Make sure there is at least one fully mature, hard older growth with the cutting. Let it dry in the shade for a few hours.
Stake it firmly so the stem is just pressed into the medium, horizontally, and is not buried in the new pot. It is fine for the stem to be just sitting on the surface and not buried at all. It is also fine if the upright stems are at crazy angles because the cutting hung off the edge of a pot.
Water well once, and be sure the stem remains exposed. Then let it stay dry until gentle tugging shows it is rooted. Resume regular watering. The stake can come out when the plant makes a few new growths that are well rooted. It will hold itself up then.
The same method works for the little Huernias, except you rarely need to stake them. If you just lay them on the surface of the medium, and water by just moistening the surface with a spray bottle, they will take off and grow.
Stapeliads are not particular at all about soil. In nature they grow under bushes, where their wind-blown parachute seeds come to rest among leaf litter. They grow out radially under the shrubs, stems on top of the leaf litter while roots penetrate to the soil.
A word about mealy bugs. They are like Nazgűl to milkweeds. They hang out, invisible, on the bottoms of the stems among the roots. If there is even one mealybug a stapeliad cutting will not root. Adult stapeliads with mealy bugs often collapse overnight in warm, humid weather, when they should be growing fastest. I put imidacloprid granules at root level of all stapeliad cuttings I root. Since the flowers are fly-pollinated I don't worry about neonicotinoid effects on bees. If a stapeliad isn't growing rapidly during warm, humid weather, it is 95% likely it has unrecognized mealy bugs.
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