Trident Maple air layer separation

[Scott Martin]

I had a few trees in the collection that needed to be layered in order to create something that may one day become a bonsai.

The layer was made just prior to spring as I wanted to use the energy from the bud burst to generate the new roots. Here's one of them today.

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The growth has been allowed to continue without any pruning to help push the roots. It looks healthy so it's time for a sneak peak to see what's happened..

Positive signs so far.

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Looks great.

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Here's the bottom section of the layer.

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Using tweezers, I carefully removed the sphagnum moss and the layer has worked perfectly to produce a nice, radial root pattern.

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Time to remove the layer.

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Then it's secured into a grow pot and will be kept in the workshop for a week to allow it to settle then back out to the benches in a shaded position.

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The growth has been pruned back too so you can see the rough future size of this one.

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The tree has taken a good step forward to one day becoming a nice little tree. The other Trident that was layered at the same time had exactly the same result.

[fae]

Thanks fr the detailed post Scott.

There were certainly a lot of roots radiating from the graft.

I will be interested to see the progress of both the parent and it's offspring.

Great work.

Fiona

[Brian]

excellent job and well documented for others to follow your technique.

[JR_J]

Well done Scott!!!

Great little tree with huge potential!

Cheers, R&M

[Elmar]

G'day Scott,
What is the substrate in the growth pot? Just sphagnum moss,Bonsai soil mix or a potting mix? Or a combination of the above???
Looking good


Cheers
EZ
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scott Martin]

Hi EZ. Yes it's sphagnum moss on top. The trees were just put into my normal mix and the moss is just there until they start kicking off again.

Thanks got the comments too.