Laboured lilly pilly layer

LillY Pilly
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Steve B
Aussie Bonsai Fan
Aussie Bonsai Fan
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Joined: July 31st, 2012, 7:54 pm
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Bonsai Age: 10
Location: Canberra, Australia
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Laboured lilly pilly layer

Post by Steve B »

Another backyard yamadori exercise. This one has been in a pot for about 3 years now with good response from the various forms of bonsai torture I have inflicted upon it.
Stout trunk with some reasonable taper down low, but then straightening a little too much for my liking. I'm thinking elongated broom as the long term direction (to match the natural growth habit I tend to see around Sydney) so decided I could go with less trunk.
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Applied a layer with a combination of ring barking and tourniquet - I even put a plastic girdle around it to force the roots horizontal similar to the CD method. Lots of sphagnum around the exposed trunk/bark all held in place by a Kens Mix (mk1) of 1/3 zeolite, 2/3 diatomite. The layer went on 9 months ago and it slowed noticeable in growth above the layer for the first 6 months and has only recently started firing again.
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Took a look over the weekend (no photos) and there are still no roots showing yet. I had told myself I would wait until they came out of the bottom of the pot - 9 months was all I could take before I had to take a peek. LOTS of callusing though - the girth is about 10cm diameter on the layer with the callus adding another 5cm to the overall diameter (I think the plastic girdle has worked well on this aspect).
Question for lilly pilly/layering gurus - wait it out or is there something that can prod it into producing some roots off the callus?
I scraped the callus back slightly and reapplied rooting hormone when I peeked in. I have been misting the leaves with a combo of seasol and hormone to try and get plenty of auxins to the callus. Anything else or just that magic ingredient time?

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Here's a shot of the base which could have some potential down the track. Plenty of primary branch options all the way up to the layer. Also got some toothpicks in there under the spagnum to try and encourage a bit more nebari to balance out the large single root.


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Last edited by Steve B on October 19th, 2015, 8:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
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