Air Layering

[SuperBonSaiyan]

Yeah my experience layering shideshojo has been almost entirely negative. I looked back over my last thread and one grew a very feeble root but still didn't survive long term after separation, all the others failed. Still i would be tempted to try one more time but there are none at my local nurseries at the moment. Maybe in spring

If you find in the future you have a spare layer of seigen around i'd love to buy one or work some kind of swap deal out with you

It's annoying because I had plans to make a deshojo forest, but if it's this difficult to layer I'll be lucky to wind up with one tree to play with. It's surprising because i see that momiji (who is in Pacific North West) has had luck layering shindeshojo. Maybe the weather needs to be more rainy and humid.

Sure, i was planning to have two seigens this season but one of them snapped off during a windy day. Hoping this one takes, then I'll set two more next year.

[TimS]

Yeah my experience layering shideshojo has been almost entirely negative. I looked back over my last thread and one grew a very feeble root but still didn't survive long term after separation, all the others failed. Still i would be tempted to try one more time but there are none at my local nurseries at the moment. Maybe in spring

If you find in the future you have a spare layer of seigen around i'd love to buy one or work some kind of swap deal out with you

It's annoying because I had plans to make a deshojo forest, but if it's this difficult to layer I'll be lucky to wind up with one tree to play with. It's surprising because i see that momiji (who is in Pacific North West) has had luck layering shindeshojo. Maybe the weather needs to be more rainy and humid.

Sure, i was planning to have two seigens this season but one of them snapped off during a windy day. Hoping this one takes, then I'll set two more next year.

I follow momiji on instagram but can’t recall seeing her layering the shindeshojo so I’ll give it a squiz. If I find another garden tree in a nursery I’ll pick it up and give it another go documenting what process I use and try a few out to see if one way works better than another.

[BirchMan]

It's a warm one in Perth so time to chill and try to document some of my layering efforts. I got into shimpaku air layering from watching the Bonsaiworx channel on Youtube.

Here's the mother plant:

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Open top air layers need a bit of vigilance in summer, particularly with a mix of perlite and coco peat as the mix:

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The crown was separated back in July, potted up, and in about November I decided it was strong enough to air layer off its own pre-wired top (layers of layers = infinite plants):

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Closeup of pre-wiring:

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This small air layer was separated mid December. It had only rooted sparingly on one side, and I took a senior club member's advice to pot it in pure sphagnum. Shibui's post earlier gives me a fair bit of confidence in its survival:

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Cheers.

[BirchMan]

Here's a couple I've set on a 2m gangly Seiju elm mother plant. The plan is to layer off the vigorously shooting stubs as they're created, hopefully resulting in a small army (no pun intended) of shohin.

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[BirchMan]

Last one for today. I dug this pomegranate from a to-be demoed house yesterday. Fingers crossed for its survival - it's mid thirties here this week and I used the 'rock back and forth' method, thus snapping most of the big roots. If it makes it there's a number of good junctions for layers come spring.

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[SuperBonSaiyan]

Harvested a few of the layers I set on my grafted Kamagata today. These were the two "tester" layers I set back in late October on smaller parts of the tree to check how this species layered (because it's a dwarf variety, I don't have many branches to play with - I wanted to give myself the best chance of success).

I hope they'll survive. The roots seem to have grown all the way to the bottom of the pots.

I did these in 4cm and 10cm pots (covered one with plastic, one with foil - the moss in the plastic covered one had seemed drier, but that one also had more root growth so maybe that's why). Haven't defoliated much yet, but will probably take off unwanted branches tomorrow.

[TimS]

Koto layer update.

Separated on the 28th of december; potted into 100% sphagnum moss at the time and now today a week (well 8 days later) here is the root growth and the health of the tree. Roots already reached the outside of pot, this thing is going absolutely bunta!

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[TimS]

Harvested a few of the layers I set on my grafted Kamagata today. These were the two "tester" layers I set back in late October on smaller parts of the tree to check how this species layered (because it's a dwarf variety, I don't have many branches to play with - I wanted to give myself the best chance of success).

I hope they'll survive. The roots seem to have grown all the way to the bottom of the pots.

I did these in 4cm and 10cm pots (covered one with plastic, one with foil - the moss in the plastic covered one had seemed drier, but that one also had more root growth so maybe that's why). Haven't defoliated much yet, but will probably take off unwanted branches tomorrow.

You should be good with these ones, hopefully that 2nd dry one got a good water though!

My only concern is the root to foliage ratio; seems like a lot of foliage for not much roots to support it, but hey if it works then excellent. Mine did with not much more roots so good luck

I had good success with Kamagata in the past, i think i sold it though, but yes they layer well and grow strongly so enjoy the new material to work with

[TimS]

2 of the 3 shishigashira multi trunk layers i set have rooted out Very happy with that, and not surprised the lowest one hasn't rooted yet given they are stacked up the tree and all my previous experience says the lowest one never roots out until the top ones are removed.

[BirchMan]

I just cracked open the small pod on the shimpaku and saw it's still probably 5-8 weeks away. Callousing nicely but no roots yet. We have about 3 months growing season left.

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[TimS]

Update on the Kotohime layer i separated recently. Here's how the rooots are going in the sphagnum moss as is my usual method, 2 photos = 2 sides of the root ball

Timeline has been:
3rd week of November set layer
Dec 19: First roots noticed at edge of bag
Dec 29: Layer separated
Jan 15 roots look like this

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Here's how the top looks. no loss of vigour, very healthy and happy

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[BirchMan]

I separated the small 'knob' Seiju today after digging and noticing 'some' roots. Removed longer shoots but have place it in a closed tub under my benches with a dressing of sphagnum to hopefully get the full complement of roots before season's end.

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Will wait a few more weeks before removing the other one.

[Daluke]

Pretty sweet birchman

[SuperBonSaiyan]

I checked on a dryish layer on my shindeshojo.

Not a single root. Wrapped it back up but don't have high hopes at the moment.

Was tempted to check the seigan layer today as well, since it's sprouting new leaves, but decided against it and left it alone.

[TimS]

I checked on a dryish layer on my shindeshojo.

Not a single root. Wrapped it back up but don't have high hopes at the moment.

Was tempted to check the seigan layer today as well, since it's sprouting new leaves, but decided against it and left it alone.

Good plan, if the shishi layer doesn’t have roots it’s probably not the end of the world. Sometimes layers just callus but don’t root out, the tree doesn’t die above and with another dusting of rooting hormone it can take.

I’m trying it on the big Kotohime layer after the last was removed. It’s been a few weeks and is now pushing new leaves but I also don’t want to mess with it at the moment

With the layer on the Seigen the less you mess with it the better generally. Once a week I might very very gently take a peek but generally try not to disturb as new roots break off very easily