Cloning can be super easy with the right equipment (an aero-cloner like the Clone King). I clone my plants right before flowering. Clones are as mature as the plant it came from. After the clone has rooted, treat it like any other plant.
I take clones of all my plants before putting them in flowering, and keep the clones in another tent staying in veg while their mothers flower and grow bud. After harvest and smoke testing, I decide if any of them are worth keeping around and ditch the clones from the plants I don’t want to keep. This allows me to keep a stable of only the best specimens.
Check out my cloning journal/tutorial for everything you would want to know about cloning and keeping bonsai clone mothers.