AusBonsai

Hey all, once again I'm on hear ask for some advice and aftercare knowledge with my two Callistemon Air layers I have potted about 1 hour ago. Not sure what type of Bottle Brush but the tree is about 8m tall?

I first Layered them about 4 months ago & as removed them there were a lot of fine red roots throughout the Sphagnum moss. I proceeded to pot them in a 50/50 mix of bonsai soil & propagating sand. After i set up the support ties & fought of 1000 mozzies I treated each with Seasol.

I Usually do the Pup trick and place a battery next to each trunk for scale but I forgot this time, but each trunk is about 40mm at the base of the soil. I'm still undecided of what direction I want to take with each so opinions would be welcome.

So i guess what I was curious about is first of all the survival rate of layers like this as I haven't had much experience with natives. Secondly how should I position it for optimun aftercare Full shade/Partial Shade/Full sun?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Below is Air Layering 1. I am leaning towards a Shohin approach by carving the leader above the wired branch & using the wired branch as the new leader?

Air Layer 2, for this I was thinking either a Literati or Literati/Windwsept approach? should I cut back all the long branches or is it wise to leave some leaves & see what new growth is produced before cutting?
Cheers All

Ryan

Hi Ryan
Sorry can't help you with an answer but have a question (is that a fair trade ? ) Obviously you used sphagnum moss - but what was the rest of the process ? Did you use a hormone, how far in length did you scrape the cambium back etc etc. I have a few in my garden and would like to layer them. Not having much luck with the Banksia Integrifolia in my garden or swamp cypress I have in a styro box.


Tony

i would keep in a shaded or part shaded position until growth occurs and then move it out to morning sun, when the tree is strong and going with all cylinders firing then i would go with full sun. seasol and super thrive should be fine to use then when it is firing go with the normal feed regime

im going on the layers i have taken which are on exotics and some native fig. i have had a pretty good success rate with all

Hey Tony,

I cut in about 5mm through the bark and into the hardwood, I made sure that I cut away a few layers of hardwood so there was no cambium layer left. I made each ring about 30mm wide, then I treated them both with root hormone powder. I use about a tennis ball size lump of sphagnum mass (maybe even a bit bigger) to wrap around the ringbark section allowing the moss to cover about 40mm above and below the ringbark cuts. At the time I only had an an oven bag which i used to cover the moss then bound it tightly at each end with twine. I found the oven bag to work really well.

After that I left it for about 4 months, hopefully it was long enough to develop some string feeders.

That was about all until i cut them off today and planted them, Fingers crossed.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Ryan

Hey Ryan,

Looking to do this myself, and came across this thread ... how did they go? Any pics to share?

- Daniel

Ryan hasn’t posted here since 2014 . Maybe if you sent him a private message he may get an email and then respond .

Oh ... will do, thanks for highlighting that!