Air layering a Carambola

[Cajunrider]

My carambola is budding right now while wintering in my house. I brought it in late November and it dropped all leaves. Now it is budding. What's the earliest time I can air layer this tree?

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I would wait until you can move it outside and it is showing strong growth. It is an evergreen tropical, so the fact that it dropped all its leaves is a sign of environmental stress of some sort or other. You need to allow it to fully recover, or it may not be strong enough to successfully air-layer.

Also... you didn't say what kind of air-layer you are planning to do. Air-layering off the top of the tree, while leaving branches and foliage beneath the girdle, is much less stressful than doing a ground level layer (girdle below the lowest level of foliage).

 

[Cajunrider]

I would wait until you can move it outside and it is showing strong growth. It is an evergreen tropical, so the fact that it dropped all its leaves is a sign of environmental stress of some sort or other. You need to allow it to fully recover, or it may not be strong enough to successfully air-layer.

Also... you didn't really say what kind of air-layer you are planning to do. Air-layering off the top of the tree, while leaving branches and foliage beneath the girdle, is much less stressful than doing a ground level layer (girdle below the lowest level of foliage).

I'm air layering the top of the tree (about 18") leaving 5 ft below with plenty of branches and foliage when the tree is growing. The top will be wired for bonsai. The bottom will be for fruit production since my lady likes them for her salad. The carambola tends to fruit profusely when it is happy

 

[Bonsai Nut]

That sounds pretty doable, though I don't have any personal experience with the species. Just make sure that it recovers and you have a lot of buds above the girdle so you have a lot of auxin being generated.

 

[Cajunrider]

That sounds pretty doable, though I don't have any personal experience with the species. Just make sure that it recovers and you have a lot of buds above the girdle so you have a lot of auxin being generated.

My thinking is to wait until end of February. Down here it will be warm enough to bring it out side. By that time I should have a decent flush of leaves on the tree everywhere and the buds for the second sets of leaves will be pushing.

 

[Cajunrider]

The leaves are starting to come out on the future air layer top.