Encouraging aerial roots on variegated ficus benjamina

aml1014

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Today while I was watering the trees I notices some aerials forming on my variegated banjamina. So I went ahead and cut a pot and wrapped it around the 5 trunks, filled it with soil, and hopefully soon I should have some new roots to thicken up the base a bit. Any comments are welcome
 

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KennedyMarx

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Being one of the guys that keeps tropicals up north I've struggled getting aerial roots. What finally worked for me was letting them get pot bound, then slipping the pots down into larger nursery pots to increase humidity under the canopy and increase the shade around the lower trunk and branches. Your soil in the pot technique will probably work, but I wonder if there will be a noticeable difference between those and aerials thrown out in humid air.
 

KennedyMarx

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I took a couple pics so you could see
 

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zelk

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Maybe this is useful?

Makes sense to me but I have not tried.
 
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Maybe this is useful?

Makes sense to me but I have not tried.

TL;DR: Wrap the trunk with a plastic bag. Mist twice in the afternoon and keep temperature under 106F. Make sure you have lots of feeder roots and a strong canopy (recommended not to prune leaves before doing this since you need the leaves to dry out the soil by midday). Useful info starts around 24:00.
 

Desert Rat

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There's a guy who posts on a Facebook classified/auction page that swears by wrapping tropical trunks in aluminum foil to produce aerial roots. He also lives where it's naturally humid, so that may be helping him too.

I like KennedyMarx's setup, a nice umbrella/ ball of dense canopy that "seals" up the gaps on the larger nursery can. I will have to try this, as it seems like it'd really make a nice and dark humid environment.
 
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