I have been pretty successful with airlayers, as in all live, but some don't get 360 roots, but I have never done one on a trunk over two inches. One of the problems of doing it at the same time from both sides is that sometimes the lines don't meet.
A year later we decided to look inside the big pot and see what we got.
Well, what we got was wonderful roots
But only on one side. Turns out it is important to rotate your airlayers, even if the tree is over 50 pounds and is hard to deal with.
After some wrestling with separating this thing without cutting the roots off I came up with the idea of wrapping the roots in a t-shirt and sawing through the stump. It took some time.
I was pretty sure there were enough roots there for the tree to survive. I recut the side with no roots and added more rooting hormone with the hope of better luck next year. I guess I don't need to rotate it anymore :)
The tree seems to be doing well a month later. I hope it growth new roots this year.
Is this not a ground layer rather than an air layer? Also the one-sided roots thing is something I am dealing with. No luck yet to get roots on the other side and I think I am going to turn the tree into a raft. One option will be root grafts if you can get some seedlings or cuttings
ReplyDeleteNic, Thank you for your comment. I don't really know the difference between ground layer and air layer so I am sorry if I missed the correct term. I will be taking a bunch of cuttings from this tree later on so I will have plenty of material to do root grafts next year. But I am hopeful that I might get some roots. we will know more next year - I will post an update.
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