Air layering lace leaf maple?

[damienw133]

Hi all,

I've got a couple of weeping lace leaf maples that were grafted too high for my liking and was just wondering if anyone on here has had any experience with air layering grafted maples below the graft to shorten the trunk height?

It seems to be widely the case that lace leaf maples are weak on their own roots so i was thinking of trying to air layer just below the graft to get new roots as close to the lace leaf trunk as possible....is this likely to work or would i just be wasting my time and unnecessarily risking the tree?

Cheers,
Damien

[GavinG]

An air-layer just below the graft should give you the best of both worlds, if you can get it to look OK. Sometimes an angled cut line can help to disguise the lumps and bumps of grafts. Good luck,

Gavin

[shibui]

It is definitely possible to layer the trunk below the graft. You can do it anywhere on the trunk right up to the grafted site. As long as you are layering the rootstock it should work.
Remember that you don't have to layer straight across the trunk. A Gavin said, an angled layer can give you roots that will allow the trunk to be planted at an angle to give a more interesting trunk line but if you just want to go with a shorter vertical weeper then by all means just make the layer straight across.