AusBonsai

Steven wrote:G'day Mick,

Yes and it's a great way to get a good root spread.
Here is one I started a couple of weeks ago.

I'll let you know how the Tupperware goes in a couple of months.

Regards,
Steven

Hey Steven,

I think that Tupperware will do the Hokey Pokey once those roots get going! Is it going to be firm enough?

Cheers

Rintar wrote: so a few months on?? imthinking of doing this type of thing to cuttings in october so am wondering how it all went.....

Hi Rintar,

I haven't uncovered the roots and won't do so until October when the weather warms up. All trees that I have done this too are growing nicely including the one that I treated as a large cutting.

The bad news is that my wife discovered her missing Tupperware but suspects that one of the 4 kids were responsible

Regards,
Steven

If my husband took my tupperware, I'd just go buy more... on his credit card... do you know how expensive that stuff is???

for those wanting to try this, go to an op shop.. always heaps of "lids" there for the asking

thanks steven and paddles
and steve she is right it is very expensive im thinking $2 shop ripeoffs are more my budget if i ant find anything in the op shops

When doing this method do you want to make sure to leave a small gap under the cutting? In other words, do you tightly screw the cutting to the wood, or leave some room underneath to ensure the roots have somewhere to go when they sprout out? I'm just afraid if I screw it tightly against the wood that the roots couldn't escape from the bottom of the cutting....

The Ficus Guy wrote:When doing this method do you want to make sure to leave a small gap under the cutting? In other words, do you tightly screw the cutting to the wood, or leave some room underneath to ensure the roots have somewhere to go when they sprout out? I'm just afraid if I screw it tightly against the wood that the roots couldn't escape from the bottom of the cutting....

I have never tried this, but what I do with my olives is cut the cambium at 45 degrees. That way, no matter how tightly you screw the wood against the base, there is still exposed cambium to allow growth. Worth a try right!

Andrew Legg wrote:

The Ficus Guy wrote:When doing this method do you want to make sure to leave a small gap under the cutting? In other words, do you tightly screw the cutting to the wood, or leave some room underneath to ensure the roots have somewhere to go when they sprout out? I'm just afraid if I screw it tightly against the wood that the roots couldn't escape from the bottom of the cutting....

I have never tried this, but what I do with my olives is cut the cambium at 45 degrees. That way, no matter how tightly you screw the wood against the base, there is still exposed cambium to allow growth. Worth a try right!

Ah great, thanks Andrew. That makes sense.

Anyone have any updates on this method? Particularly yours and the tupperware Steven?

I do this with all of my trees, at time of repot, after a season or two of healthy root growth, I select the main roots I want, remove the ones I don't, (flat cut tap roots or downward growing roots if necessary and paint with rooting hormone) and then plant on anything flat.

I have used upturned saucers and bread and butter plates, lids off ice cream containers, pavers, bits of Perspex, pieces of timber, anything flat.

I usually just plant straight on and wire into the pot as normal.

Where I want roots to develop from the flat cut site, or from areas on the base of the trunk where I want to develop nebari, I will either paint with hormone gel, or place spagnum moss, or both,

I have found using spagnum moss around the roots of (violently) collected trees gets me great root development when I have either bare roots or ripped the trees out and not left a lot of root to play with.

My trees are planted on CD's/DVD's. All my old 4wding and fishing dvd's that have been watched 5000 times are now fattening my trees. They are cheap, strong and work well. If a tree grows a tap root through the centre it helps the tree grow, but easy to cut it off as there will be plenty of roots around the outside.

Josh