just to go with my bad luck with cuttings at the moment i decided it was time to take an air layer of and check it, the tree is willow leaf fig, trunk is about 2 inches in diameter, you can see how much i allowed and well you can see what happened. wasnt happy but what do ya do? the tree wanted to stay tall, i didnt want it to stay tall
as you can see it has tried to heal up, this is 3/4 around the trunk, the other quarter had a small amount of roots which i was surprised at but realised the tree was putting energy in to heal the wound, not grow roots, so out with the scalpel, of came the scar tissue, which i think might help flare the base out some when it does come of anyways as it started pushing the bark out anyways and had quite a thick white meaty section of bark where the roots had formed.
after the scar tissue was cleaned of completly, which is very important as it will just try and re heal again if it isnt (no pics sorry, i was trying to work fast)
and then back on with the basket and my mix, prop sand, chopped sphag, and diatomite.
hopefully in four weeks time i will be looking at a basket full of new roots, i had a gut feeling something wasnt worknig right, having a feel around every now and again to see if anything was forming, just didnt realise the wound was healing until this mornin.
ahwell, we live and learn and these things happen. so if you havent attempted air layers before and you take one off to check it and see something like the pic above, you will know what is going on!
jamie
taking the top half of trees of since 2005! 
