Have You Done Any Air Layering

Preferably, plants that take that long, I would personally leave these until spring before attempting this process as you need 6 to 8 weeks of growing time before a frost, for the every day gardener that is, but having a crop house with heated benches and LED lighting, I get extra time, for example, I do my Bougainvillea hardwood cuttings end of January, which is not recommended in a garden greenhouse, last week, we did soft cuttings of Salvia's, in trays of 84, on the heat benches, they will be rooted in 2 to 3 weeks, then planted into 9cm pots to overwinter, then into 2 litre pots, again not recommended for a garden greenhouse.
Some plants can root from airlayering quite quickly, I have had Physocarpus root in 16 days. For the every day gardener, I would advise to do air layering in the spring if you do not know the plant, something I should of mentioned earlier, is the rules are slightly different for myself, for which I appologise.
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https://www.google.com/search?clien...ayer+plants#kpvalbx=_g8BKX4HCJ86egQbbqbeQBA36

 

I have had a go of air layering with my new ball propagators, its so much easier than trying to do it with an empty cotton bud box,

I found the bark on my Red Maple very thin, I wondered if it might have been caused from being completely covered with brambles before I cleared it away.



I used the compost @Cuttings recommended



From the propagator to the top of the branch is about 4-5 feet

 

Finally found this post. Having read some books I'm feeling full of enthusiasm for trying bonsai. I'm thinking this may be a good way to get a more mature start, I have a nice Acer and some nice Hawthorn I'll try it on. If you read any newspaper stories about plastic balls appearing on wild tree's that'll be me.

 

Where are you going to order your pods from @mazambo ?

I'm not keen on ordering from China, but the options seem limited.

 

There's quite a few on eBay from Uk suppliers, they've probably bought them from China and upped the prices but I'll only need a few.

 

Yeah I did see those, as you say, upped the prices.

 

I ordered some of mixed sizes. Must be honest. So often stuff from abroad often arrives faster than so called first class from within the UK. Also I have noticed that many Chineses traders have business premises in this country for instance, Hounslow.

 

More than enough time has elapsed, what happened to everyones air layering attempts?

What was the outcome of using the plastic balls?



Anyway, here is the first of this year's air layerings (started in early May 2021):

A plum tree (possibly Victoria plum) located in our Peace & Wellbeing Garden.


Air layers applied to sucker shoots as there was no obvious graft union.


Severed today.




And, potted up.

 

I've been using the plastic balls, still got quite a few left in place, but up to now I have 4 layers I have potted up, one is a pomegranate, a chilopsis and two Fabianas which are a bit slow to get going in their new roots.
Still got about half a dozen on various plants which seem to be slow to grow new roots.

 

@pete

Good to know but next time please include pictures of the roots just as the plastic balls are taken off the plants.

Firstly, because there is an unwritten forum rule which states that if you can't produce a picture or a video of the object then it doesn't exist.

Secondly, it will provide valuable information to our newbie audience. Specifically, the roots will come from above the banding cut on the branch so the plastic ball should be placed onto the branch skewed towards the upper part.

 

Yeah I don't think I took any pictures, I could take some of the others, some are just showing callous going on at the base of the cutting, as you say from the top of where the bark was stripped.

 

A couple of pictures of what is happening as the roots start to form.
Firstly the plant starts to heal the cut area by forming a callous, after that in the damp environment inside the sphere it starts to form roots above the cut area.



Top is to the right in this picture the branch is actually horizontal, this is on pomegranate.

 

I've got to say that although it is more fiddly to do I think the polythene wrap is better than the black spheres.
Especially with the cable ties as you have used @misterQ the spheres do dry out and I'm finding slugs love to hide in them during the day.