A Pyra'maniac, I May Become

[Darth Masiah]

4/28/2021
trying to airlayer this pyracantha. after i took the below picture, my concave pruners sent the circled in red chip directly into my eye. that was definitely the most pain I've ever felt coming from my eye. im really surprised i walked away from that shit with my cornea intact. oh well, we live and don't learn

 

[Darth Masiah]

yesterday i saw roots.





hasn't populated this side of the bag yet. only one root i can see



Japanese beetles can defoliate



upper foliage first, then...



guess they don't like raw berries.

 

[penumbra]

So glad you didn't harm your eye. Eyes are so delicate it amazes me what they survive.

 

[BrianBay9]

Nice start on the air layer. Pyra's do like to grow STRAIGHT

 

[Darth Masiah]

Nice start on the air layer. Pyra's do like to grow STRAIGHT

super straight i was definitely surprised when i saw the branch.

 

[badatusernames]

Nice work. Sometimes it's nice to have a relatively gentle reminder that even though 99% of the time something bad doesn't happen, it's always best to buckle up or whatever, haha. I am familiar with what you experienced and it is not fun.

 

[Darth Masiah]

early june cuttings did great. silverberry too.

 

[Cadillactaste]

The side with one root. Is that the side getting more sun? They say...roots won't grow toward the sun but follows darkness. I might cover that with something more opaque and see what happens if it is facing the sun.

 

[Darth Masiah]

The side with one root. Is that the side getting more sun?

yes. i think the roots were moving towards the warmer medium.

 

[Darth Masiah]

i ended up collecting this pyra with only a few roots. i heard they're strong, so i even cut the callus again. yeah, no problem at all.

 

[Darth Masiah]

last month i cut that high root and lowered the soil to the radial roots that have come out. only killed the tip of one shoot so far.

 

[BrianBay9]

I've never seen an pyra air layer with ANY roots fail. I wouldn't be surprised if a cutting that size grew roots and thrived.

 

[Pitoon]

I like most everything that comes from Japan.......except those damn beetles!

Looks like you caught pyracantha fever, lol

 

[Darth Masiah]

slip potted this guy into a smaller container because i wanted to check the roots and make it a little more secure after my bag fell on it when i was getting ready to wire it and noticed it was loose in the pot. broke a shoot off the back side i was going to use, too didn't wire too tight because bite marks don't heal very well. at least on my cuttings they weren't, and i don't want to hurt the buds closest to the trunk.

 

[Esolin]

You've got some nice trunks there from your air layers! Good starts. It's cool to see someone else playing with pryas. They're an underappreciated species. So tough.

 

[Darth Masiah]

 

[queenofsheba52]

Looking good!

 

[Darth Masiah]

in my limited experience, they don't like big bites

 

[Darth Masiah]

unwiring cuttings. got a lot to do this year. here's a couple -


rosemary

gardenia

silverberry

 

[Darth Masiah]

that was a very productive cut on that low branch.