Don't worry too much about those roots yet, they will get better now you've got them in a more gritty mix, and it's a Trident Maple so they are very vigorous growers as you would know. You don't need to wrap them up so tight like that, when you crush the moss that much you have no chance of air getting in at all. That's partly why your roots came straight out to the edge and down the outside of the moss. My last layering (celtis) I used coco peat with some pumice mixed in and a wider ball for the roots to spread out which worked very well, I got a good spread of roots right around the trunk. I had the top of the plastic (I used clear plastic tied with zip ties around the trunk) slightly open so I could water and feed it, the looser mix needed watering more often. Having said that, my tree was in the ground and pretty much a straight up trunk, those big roots you got on the underside is simply because of gravity and the slant of the trunk. Hope this gives you a couple of ideas because air layering is a very satisfying way of creating good material.
I like that you are explaining the cause and effect of what you are doing!! It helps me understand what is happening a lot better than other videos I've seen. Thanks!
I was given bonsai trees and had no idea how. To look after then but I’ve watched a fue of your videos and I now have so much more knowledge about looking after the roots and the moisture of them. I think voice is very calming and that in itself helped me. Your very handsome if you don’t mind me saying.
It's a long time no see you to collecting bonsai material. I miss that's series so much. btw, this's a nice video, thank you so much. Waiting for next video.
I became so busy this year, that I didn't have the time to go out & collect any. It's a bummer, because it's one of my favorite things to do... next year!
I did the same thing but on a lifesize Oaktree the branch im trying to root is kind of large to, Like 3 or 4 feet long. june 25 was its 3months deadline were you are supose to unwrap,cut and,plant it so the roots dont start to rot. but i was not happy either with amount of roots it developed. i created a pot like you with metal wires and clear plastic. im happy i did that, cose i can see the roots grow along the plastic, and we are now since that day in a heatwave. So the branch can still benefit from the strength of the tree
Great! You might think about keeping it there through the winter. I ended up letting this stay in the pot until the following spring - it did wonderfully. I'll show that in the next video.
this is really easy to do on a fig tree too, they love to grow roots in a matter of weeks, a few months of this method on a fig tree would make the airlayering rootbound, not sure if you could airlayer and make the tree rootbound, but you know what i mean, great for a major cutting, though the cutting is the last step haha, rooting is first step
A bit of info I've found on this is that the roots don't actually grow from the cut area. They grow from the top side of the cut. So adjust your cuts below where you want the roots to be and be sure to have your root medium covering this area. I've tried and failed at this once on a jap maple, so I know what won't work, but I didn't have this info. No one seems to mention it in all of the air layering videos. But I do know that if you have ants in your yard they will be very interested in your layering activities, so prepare for them. At one point I had a bag full of ants.This plastic and tape looks like it would work to keep them out.
Very good video! Extremely informative and well done. I will be watching for the next episode. PS: That looks like it will turn out to be a very nicely shaped bonsai.
I've used air layering for cloning plants likeblackberries, raspberries, fruit trees, and the like, but I never thought of applying it to bonsai. a very clever way of making sure the plant goes in the shape that you want while maintaining a strong healthy root system. I do have one question, why not just use the container right away from the start? That's closer to what I do when I'm cloning stuff because it gives more room for the roots and gives me some leeway if I happen to forget about it for a couple of days or more.
In truth, it's because I'm a dummy and didn't try. Or maybe scared, because the first two times I tried layering, I planted it deep in the ground with a cut in the same area with no success.
Wow thank you how informative!!! I have started growing Bonsais about 8 years ago. and I love it! I was not familiar with air layering You have given me some ideas!! Thanks
I love what you’re doing, I’m a rare plants collector my self here in the tropical Philippines,where did you learned all of your knowledge and techniques in bonsai?
Many years of practice & study. In the beginning, I read a lot. Then I joined a club and learned much from them. I watched several RU-vid videos, then realized they weren't showing what I wanted to see. So I had to make it up myself to show. And still learning!
this is what i did to a plum tree ( not grafted ) Before i seen this video, i even put the wood spacers so i can fit a saw between pots when the top pot grows roots. i used normal potting mix and didn't start with a marcot.
Well done. Also, this illustrates why I stopped using the stringy type of sphagnum and went with peat moss; too stringy, it looks like roots and is dangerous when pulling it away from the fragile new roots.
Hi Ben, good to see you again. Your new home has nice greenery around. For air layering trees in one's possession, air pruning containers will offer superior & denser root system. That plastic wrap makes sense for trees which are a bit away from home, where daily care cannot be given. LeeBonsai dot com had an excellent example of air layering in colander but he lost those pics at photobucket site. Here is another example below :
That's a cool video, and fantastic recommendation, Vinny! And to be fair, the greenery in the back is still the old house. The new place doesn't have as many trees. It's a trade off for convenience, but I'll show it soon!
The colander is a great way to develop young trees, yamadori and performing air layers. The only trouble I have found with this method, and using cut pots for air layers is keeping them still. You can see when he's talking about the first colander he points his finger in to point at the trunk and knocks the wire holding the colander and you can see it move a little. If you're airlayering anywhere that they might get knocked by animals, children etc. it will be a problem when the layer is at that important stage of just starting to produce roots. I think he may mention this when he's preparing the second smaller colander when he wobbles it around but unfortunately I don't understand a word of Spanish. Understandably though he only has one wire holding it at that point. They are very effective though as you can get great air flow from drainage and as I mentioned above you can use a more coarse mix, he's using pure Akadama by the looks of it.
+jimijames marshall ... yes, i agree that stability of the container is crucial, specially in windy conditions. but it would apply to any container used. There is another interesting example for this topic - google ""air layering with air-pots houzz"
I sucessfully air-layered a shady branch from a full grown Yew Tree back in the 90's. I made a pouch with thick clear polythene and packed with wild collected moss [ checked for nasty bugs ] and managed to get a small stock plant. [ pity a dry summer chasing girls lead to it dying :0( ]
It also used heat and capillary action to draw water from the ground to the top. So by doing that you are also stopping the plant from brining in nutrients as well
I think that you might have wrapped the plastic around the spaghnum moss a bit too tight, that would make it 'wetter' in that spot, and the sun gives warmth to the air layering which help the roots grow.
Hello, thank you for the wonderful video. A question i have though is what about the initial part that was in the pot? How are you using that after you have established the roots and you have the piece that you need?
You can still reuse the tree, but for this particular air layer, I am not using that bottom part. It was an extremely low cut (latest video), that leaves nothing to be desired. If you do an air layer on a branch, though, you can absolutely use rest of the tree. I have friends that have a parent tree that produces many different cuttings/air layers.
4:32 light is a root stressor. In some species, the stress may induce rapid root grow. I don't know a lot of this, but I have found papers that shows that Quillays (I'm from Chile) exhibits this behavior. My ignorant theory is this stress reaction is a evolutive adaptation in mountainous terrains with dry climate. The high slope terrain will be significantly eroded in the tree's lifetime.Therefore, the trees will have to continue to root deeper and deeper as the erosion increases, allowing them to survive. Avoiding rooting because of light will increase the probability of death, thus natural selection. In Air layering, the light could potentially induce something similar. but intuition says that, if it has this behavior, it also has to have a way to priorize the deepest root. hence, ruining the prospects of the Air layer.
So will the bottom part of this tree still be viable? I know that's the idea but usually when I see this done there a lot more growth below the new root area.
If there had been another branch below the cut it would have survived. However, since this was all there was, all the energy from the leaves went into the new roots, not the old ones. By the time I separated this, the tree below expired. Truth be told, it wasn't very attractive, hence why I did the layer.
I had good success on my peach and fig, but I tried 6 air layerings on 4 of the Japanese Maples in my yard and got nothing. It has been 2/12 months now. What do you do if the layerings do not take? Do you wait until Spring in hope that Winter will give them a jump-start? Keep making content.......it is VERY educational.
I'd wait until spring. If it doesn't work, try again. One of the big failures of a layering is when the cambium isn't scraped completely clean. This will continue the pathway instead of interrupting it. However, a long-time member of my club didn't have much success during the growing season but allowed it to continue through spring, at which point he had plenty of roots. Autumn is a time when root growth is strong, so hold off until then.
Try air layering straight into a pot with akadama on that type of material, it's much easier and produces better roots. Otherwise a good demo on bag and moss air layering.
I watched an old bonsai master do the same thing you are doing in this video accept when he made the ladderal cut he also made vertical cuts in the bark it made about 4or5 flaps of bark and then he stuck wedges of wold underneath the bark whitch held the bark away from the wood layer he replanted the tree in a very tall pot instead of wrapping it like you did. in a years time he had a butt load of roots and then he cut the original roots off. I have been trying to learn a little about this myself I'm thinking about doing this myself it is amazing what you can do to a tree and it still live and shape it to your imagination any advice would be appreciated.
The vertical cuts, I'm assuming that they would be above the debarked section, could you confirm. I have some short trunked projects that I wish to reduce further, the deep pot rather than moss and wrap sounds attractive.
Great video... good tips! Curious though, was using that tree more for instructional vs. Really needing to reduce the verse taper? I'm humbly asking because my thoughts were a bit of neat carving would have looked cool to remove the taper and add character and leave tree height in tact?!
The reverse taper was definitely present, and the remainder of the tree below wasn't very interesting. I think you'll like it when I show the next vid!
awesome, I've seen a lot of cool things about bonsai planting techniques, you've been by far the most amazing, I've learned a lot, I already have something to do tomorrow 😀
If by WNC, you mean Western North Carolina, AND, if you're close to Asheville, I'd recommend taking some workshops with the Carolina Arboretum or with the Blue Ridge Bonsai Society. They can hook you up! I recommend Turface, Pine Bark, and either coarse sand, granite, or diatomaceous earth. I have two soil videos on this channel that may give a few more recommendations. Thanks for watching and for your comment!
It's by feel really. The cambium is spongey, and then you hit the sapwood, which is hard. I was trying to keep consistent pressure all the way around without digging too deep.
Do the roots grow from above where you make the incision through the cambian? Like through the bark right above it?Or do the roots come through the white part where you made your cut?
hello, nice to see you. acer really is very beautiful, here we use the sphagnum moss crushed to facilitate the retreat, this way it is more difficult to lose some roots, embrace and stay with GOD.
I could be wrong but I think that on the side of the tree that DID NOT grow roots you cut above the node and on the side of the tree that DID grow roots you cut in the middle of the node. Maybe that’s what is happening
Hey,i have grafted Grape fruit,lemon and orange in my one citrus tree..Everything is going fine but i am confused about the proper diet???...kindly reply....
The flow of nutrients/hormones down the trunk is greatly affected by gravity. So because your trunk line above the cut goes off at an angle the bulk of the nutrients flow to that bottom edge. Hence more roots. This could be avoided by angling the pot to make the trunk line run vertically above the cut.
The flow of nutrients/hormones follow the tree's vascular system, much like animal veins, which is affected by gravity. However, the flow follows direct vascular pathways from top to bottom, not from side to side. It must be this way, otherwise the top sides of branches will die. The bottom cut isn't affected by the top cut, and vise versa.
@@AppalachianBonsai My comment was based upon what I observed to have happened in the tree and the experimentation done by botanist F.W.Went in 1928 during which he discovered the hormone Auxin. Admittedly his experimentation was done with decapitated oat coleoptiles and not trees, but it did seem to be a logical explanation.
@@AppalachianBonsai With regard to the top side of branches - The growth hormones are produced in the growing tip (I.e. the region of proliferation) and by gravity (in a horizontal tip) more goes to the underside causing accelerated growth of the underside cells, hence the reason a horizontal tip will starts to grow in an upward curve.
I really enjoyed your video, probably one of the best for air layering. I do have a question regarding keeping the wrapped air layered sphagnum moss damp. I did not see you punch holes in the plastic wrap for rain or watering. Did I miss that or will it keep damp some other way? Keep up the good work. You are enjoyable to watch and learn.
That's what I did, and part of the reason there's an old scar you can see in the beginning of the video. This time, I widened the cut, and I did a better job scraping it. Fear not, and try again!
Is there any reason you cannot remove cambium layer from the trunk at the desired height and pot the plant in a deeper pot such that the removed cambium layer is under the soil?
@@AppalachianBonsai Oh cool. Can I ask how exactly how it is hard to control. I thought it would be easier to then manage and shape the tree from the new desired position and orientation.
@@hasancuthbert8035 I think it had to do with moisture. When you water a tree, it should drain quickly, however the majority of the moisture stays in the bottom (think of a sponge where the top dries quickly and the bottom stays damp). In a deep pot, the top layer (where your cut is) dries quickly, but you don't want to over water the roots that are still sustaining the tree. The wet moss keeps a good moisture content (or the plastic tub, where more moisture can be near the cut). I realize that's a goofy response, but it's what I got for now. Hope it helps.
@@AppalachianBonsai Thank you very much for your responses, apologies for not thanking you sooner. I also have another question related to moisture: When you pot the sphagnum root ball in relatively free draining soil (as you do at 6:30) and presumably water it as the roots grow, how is it that the moss ball does not get soggy and cause the roots to rot while you keep the free draining soil appropriately moist?
@@hasancuthbert8035 The sphagnum dries a little more with the soil around it absorbing some of the moisture. It does remain more damp than soil alone, but better than a soggy mess.
