emk
Mame
This was my big year to try out air layering for the first time on an assortment of trees that I was planning to trunk-chop or just use for ornamental trees/shrubs around the yard. I got the layers started in May and used the "1-inch ring-bark (without bridge), apply rooting hormone powder, wrap with ball of wet sphagnum, cover with plastic, and wrap in black plastic" method.
I was excited to see that my Dawn Redwood was the first to show signs of rooting out. In a misguided fit of impatience I detached this layer from the host tree in late August (thankfully I had another layer going further down the trunk) to find that, in fact, I did not have any roots...just some odd swollen lumps. I tried to pot it up anyways, but it didn't make it (that whole not-having-roots thing).
Well, now it's getting to be the chilly side of November and I decided to take a close look at what was going on with my other layers. The other layer on the Dawn Redwood is going great - real roots this time. The Crab Apple is also doing well. The white pine was just refusing to respond at all - the moss just fell right off the trunk since there were no roots holding it in place.
But the oddest thing was my Linden tree - it seems to have reacted the same way as my first Dawn Redwood layer...but only on one side, and on the linden this swelling was huge.
So...what's thing kind of growth called? What causes this? What am I doing wrong? How can I avoid this in the future?
I was under the impression that air-layering was the sure-fired way to get a perfectly radial root flare...this certainly wasn't what I was expecting.
I was excited to see that my Dawn Redwood was the first to show signs of rooting out. In a misguided fit of impatience I detached this layer from the host tree in late August (thankfully I had another layer going further down the trunk) to find that, in fact, I did not have any roots...just some odd swollen lumps. I tried to pot it up anyways, but it didn't make it (that whole not-having-roots thing).
Well, now it's getting to be the chilly side of November and I decided to take a close look at what was going on with my other layers. The other layer on the Dawn Redwood is going great - real roots this time. The Crab Apple is also doing well. The white pine was just refusing to respond at all - the moss just fell right off the trunk since there were no roots holding it in place.
But the oddest thing was my Linden tree - it seems to have reacted the same way as my first Dawn Redwood layer...but only on one side, and on the linden this swelling was huge.
So...what's thing kind of growth called? What causes this? What am I doing wrong? How can I avoid this in the future?
I was under the impression that air-layering was the sure-fired way to get a perfectly radial root flare...this certainly wasn't what I was expecting.


