dogwood or crabapple - too late to airlayer?

[tantric]

looking at my prospects, my best bets for getting good material are from dogwood trees and an crab-apple (small fruits) - in N GA early June, is it too late to try an air layer?

 

[jk_lewis]

Probably not, but dogwood are very difficult trees for bonsai.

 

[tantric]

i've read that about dogwood, but my mom loved them so much and they are rather old, so if at all possible i'd like to get a tree to save. thanks.

 

[tantric]

mmm - i found this paper: Rooting and Air Layering Southern Hardwoods

The techniques for American sycamore, green ash, and sweetgum havenot been perfected to the point that a high percentage of success can be expected. However, successful airs layers have been made with these species.

Although over 45 air-layers have been attempted on yellow-poplar,southern red oak, cherrybark oak, red maple and flowering dogwood, none has been successful.

Air layers with eastern cottonwood showed a relatively high percen-tage of success with the first attempts. Subsequent refinements in techni-que have made it possible to approach 100-percent root formation from cottonwood air-layers, With cottonwood, the most satisfactory results were obtained by applying indolebutyric acid at a concentration of 3,000p.p.m. in talc to a scraped girdle of the current year's growth on young stems. [data follows]

 

[Eric Group]

Never tried or heard of anyone trying a dogwood (for the reason JKL mentioned I am sure), but the Crabapple should be doable.. As to whether it is too late? Maybe... But if it doesn't take this year in time to separate and let the roots harden off before winter, just leave it on there until Spring!

 

[Cypress187]

Probably not, but dogwood are very difficult trees for bonsai.

I'm trying one and it seems impossible with my sub-species.

Edit: My/his leaves are huge and the shoots have long inter-nodes, but the bark on the other hand is very interesting turning from green > red > brown/mature.

 

[Cmanz]

Worst case scenario is you lose the part you are trying to layer or it takes till next spring to get roots. Just go for it. Start as many as you can that way if a few fail, it's not a problem. If you haven't previously air layered take a look at a YouTube clip of Graham Potter showing the technique. In my experience, the wrap must be tight to keep excessive water from collecting in the layer.

Good luck.

 

[tantric]

well, i've learned that saran wrap sucks. yeah, it's 'polyethylene', but not for this. but lo! i found a roll of thicker polyethylene 'tape' (not sticky, but on a roll like tape) so i'm going to start a few more with that. do you use peat moss powder or lumps of stringy sphagnum moss?

 

[jk_lewis]

Suggest you Google for "air layer" and learn the various techniques.

The powdery peat moss has NO role to play in bonsai.

 

[sorce]

Long stranded Sphagnum chopped short. Chopped it's easier to remove.

Eric has been using perlite. Id try that too! Especially on elms, I found they don't like Sphagnum long, definitely not through winter.

Check out Maros' Dogwood !

Sorce