Grafting roots

[shibui]

I've always looked at the photos of Japanese trees with massive nebari - trunks flaring out into a solid plate of fused roots and wanted to have something just remotely similar so a few years ago took up the challenge of augmenting the roots of some of my tridents by root grafting. I've tried thread grafting roots but more often than not I get the top of the seedling to graft while the root part withers away. For me, approach grafting produces more reliable results.

Trident 1 with root grafts.JPG

A couple of closer views of the seedlings grafted onto roots.

[bonzaidog]

Shibui ...I recently attempted a root "free graft" on a trident as a bit of experiment/training exercise..will check things out in the near future when it's not 40 degrees charlie,and blowing like a fan forced oven! :not embarrassed,just a bit warm....Dog

[shibui]

Do you mean just grafting a bit of root on the tree rather than an entire seedling? I haven't tried that with maples but did put some on a crabapple which refused to root as a layer about 15 years ago. Just cut wedges at the top of some roots then lifted up flaps of bark at the place I wanted roots, slid the wedges in, tied it up and buried the whole lot until it healed up. Most of them took ok.

[bonzaidog]

Thats right Shibui,I cant recall exactly when it was done,but a surplus root from the same tree was used the way you describe...fingers crossed,I'll check it out a bit further down the track...Regs....Dog