Question on potting up an air layer

[cbroad]

@ConorDash
Oh haha, yeah I wasn't expecting really thick roots like that either, mostly smaller feeders. I started it on 7/5 and potted it up on 8/4, that was a whole lot faster than I thought. I guess that attests to crapes being so tenacious, they can take very hard pruning (crape murder) and push new growth in a few days; they have a strong will to live...
I saw on another thread that your elm layer is dropping leaves, hopefully it pulls through. My 1st maple is just being so slow, I started it on 6/19 and checked it 7/27 and only really saw "ball like" callusing. It looked pretty cool, like a whole group of balls stacked on each other. @sorce has the theory about the waning moon, so maybe the rest of my layers will finish up by the end of the month.

 

[ConorDash]

@ConorDash
Oh haha, yeah I wasn't expecting really thick roots like that either, mostly smaller feeders. I started it on 7/5 and potted it up on 8/4, that was a whole lot faster than I thought. I guess that attests to crapes being so tenacious, they can take very hard pruning (crape murder) and push new growth in a few days; they have a strong will to live...
I saw on another thread that your elm layer is dropping leaves, hopefully it pulls through. My 1st maple is just being so slow, I started it on 6/19 and checked it 7/27 and only really saw "ball like" callusing. It looked pretty cool, like a whole group of balls stacked on each other. @sorce has the theory about the waning moon, so maybe the rest of my layers will finish up by the end of the month.

Yes it's dropping more and more everyday, at the moment it looks quite bare and terrible, barely any leaves... But nothing more I can do but leave it and see how it goes. Even if it goes completely bald, hopefully it'll still survive long enough to go dormant in winter and come to life in spring.
Yes the callus for my air layer looked like that with the callus, balls of white all around the wound, like a necklace.
Oh wells, we will see how it all goes .

 

[cbroad]

You can scratch the cambium with your fingernail or a knife to check if there's any life in the branches. If it's green underneath it's still alive but if it's yellow or brown the branch is dead. You can start from the periphery and work your way down to the trunk to find the live cambium. If all the leaves drop but it's still scratching green then you're probably fine and I would water when it needs it and wait for the next flush. Did you pot the layer up in your litter mix?

 

[ConorDash]

You can scratch the cambium with your fingernail or a knife to check if there's any life in the branches. If it's green underneath it's still alive but if it's yellow or brown the branch is dead. You can start from the periphery and work your way down to the trunk to find the live cambium. If all the leaves drop but it's still scratching green then you're probably fine and I would water when it needs it and wait for the next flush. Did you pot the layer up in your litter mix?

I did yes, with small amounts of moss at different layers. So it's mostly inorganic litter mix, mentioned to you before. Good memory by the way lol. Still finding my way with when to water the mostly inorganic mix but good thing about it at least, is that it's difficult to over water such a mix. I'm still not doing it unless I deem it needed, not over doing it to compensate.
I'll check on some branches for green tomorrow, it's a good trick . Very thin branches, might be difficult.