What is wrong with my cuttings?

[BonsaiTreeAdmirer]

Always sanitize second hand post before reuse. Commercially we are not supposed to reuse pots because of the high risk of promoting disease and pest infection.. Back yarders an other amateurs beware of the risk of passing infection form one to another. Pots can be sanitized similar to potting soil or by scrubbing in a bleach or peroxide solution.
Re-using pots where a plant has died from infection is akin to putting a hospital patient into the same sheets where a previous patient has died of infectious disease!!!!!

Thank you so much for the clarification!
I thought I was overdoing it when I started washing the pots then heat shocking them in the microwave (they are made out of a stone like clay which gave me the idea) and allowing them to completely dry before putting the disinfected soil into them again.

 

[BonsaiTreeAdmirer]

Deleted, double post by accident

 

[BonsaiTreeAdmirer]

Thought I should use the same thread again to ask a question instead of making a new one. Hopefully people will look on page 2.

So today is the day that I am receiving my new cuttings and I cleared out the necessary pots and disinfected the soil as suggested. However, now I am a bit nervous.

I boiled about several pots of soil for 5 minutes as suggested, that left the soil looking much darker than before. I just assumed that it was wet and had left it outside to try for a while before putting that soil into disinfected pots. However...The soil is still a bit darker than before and feels dry/granular to the touch. It has already been a week since I did the boiling method.

Did I accidentally burn all of the nutrients out of the soil?

I also have a few questions about the saplings that I had potted that haven't shown much growth at all. I scratched their bark lightly and it still shows green underneath so I am not sure what is going on. They have little to no sprouts/buds/leaves on them after nearly two months of being potted. Should I just let them be or is there something wrong that I should be aware of?

As for potting the cuttings directly into the soil instead of using the water root method, is there anything different that I need to do? Or is it basically, pot the cutting 2 inch deep into the pot full of soil, put it under a humidity tent and thats it? How much do I water the cuttings if I do go with this method?

Thanks everyone! Attached pictures for reference.