SU2
Omono
I've just been in-love with Podocarpus and cannot find a yardadori I'm allowed to take and trunk-chop (right now feels like the perfect time, I'm not good with / knowledgeable about Podocarp's but I can see that spring-growth is strongly underway in them here and, far more exciting, *that they're budding spring-growth on old-wood*, I literally saw 5+ lil shoots coming from ~4' up the trunk of a ~20' podocarp yesterday, so rare to see new lil shoots growing from the trunk's thick hardwood like that and frankly it makes me suspect that it'd be just as easy for the thing to throw roots through such hardwood, provided the genetics are there at least! IBA may be sufficient for overcoming that though!!)
I can't find anything useful online sadly, will definitely "update the web" (ROFL) with what I find in my attempts, but can only find 2 references to hardwood propagation and both just mention you can do it (both were real generic / intro-type articles, nothing I'd place much faith in) I guess it's probably best to just bullet-point my main Q's here ;P
- If you can just root hardwood-cuttings like bougies/crapes allow, I'd love to hear any tips on how much foliage you leave on the specimen at rooting-time and any other tips (or if you even need foliage - with bougies you can literally just stick a 5" thick piece of branch into growing-media and it'll root&shoot!)
- If you cannot just stick thick hardwood into substrate to root them, how about aerial layerings? I imagine the best time to start would be about right-now, with spring-growth bursting? Is there an "upper limit" on how thick a layering I can make or can I just choose as large a piece as I want? If so I'd be choosing a 6" wide part of a limb, using a grocery-bag for the sphagnum and just have the ropes & chainsaw out for removal-time (and a 2nd set of hands with me of course), obviously it'd be 'risky' separating something so large but so far as the physical act of safely removing it w/o destroying the root-mass, I'm confident in being able to do that (I'd chainsaw like 6" below the bag and then use sawzall-->grinders-->concave cutters to get the bottom removed right-up-to-the-roots)
Thanks for any & all advice on propagating larger pieces of this awesome species, yesterady I actually sawed a branch off of that tree I referred to earlier and ended up making 4 good H.W.-cuttings from it (I cut in a way where the base of the cutting is a branch-collar, this gives me inherent flare at the base plus I strongly suspect the cells in the collar-area are more 'ripe' for rooting than a random spot on a branch would be), I put them in a pea-gravel & coconut-coir mixture and spaced them through my garden so the 4 of them get different light-levels and I can see what's what! I did use IBA on them, I mixed ~1/3tsp IBA with ~1oz water and, before potting a piece, I'd score the base of it to expose more cambium and then heavily applied the IBA suspension/fluid to it before packing it into a pot with coir/rocks (that were pre-wetted, meaning I didn't water-in so the IBA stays in-place better - unsure if that's smart or not, it's increasing IBA but decreasing humidity/moisture at the cambium//substrate interface as it's not water-soluble and is inherently a 'barrier' of sorts, however minor!)
I can't find anything useful online sadly, will definitely "update the web" (ROFL) with what I find in my attempts, but can only find 2 references to hardwood propagation and both just mention you can do it (both were real generic / intro-type articles, nothing I'd place much faith in) I guess it's probably best to just bullet-point my main Q's here ;P
- If you can just root hardwood-cuttings like bougies/crapes allow, I'd love to hear any tips on how much foliage you leave on the specimen at rooting-time and any other tips (or if you even need foliage - with bougies you can literally just stick a 5" thick piece of branch into growing-media and it'll root&shoot!)
- If you cannot just stick thick hardwood into substrate to root them, how about aerial layerings? I imagine the best time to start would be about right-now, with spring-growth bursting? Is there an "upper limit" on how thick a layering I can make or can I just choose as large a piece as I want? If so I'd be choosing a 6" wide part of a limb, using a grocery-bag for the sphagnum and just have the ropes & chainsaw out for removal-time (and a 2nd set of hands with me of course), obviously it'd be 'risky' separating something so large but so far as the physical act of safely removing it w/o destroying the root-mass, I'm confident in being able to do that (I'd chainsaw like 6" below the bag and then use sawzall-->grinders-->concave cutters to get the bottom removed right-up-to-the-roots)
Thanks for any & all advice on propagating larger pieces of this awesome species, yesterady I actually sawed a branch off of that tree I referred to earlier and ended up making 4 good H.W.-cuttings from it (I cut in a way where the base of the cutting is a branch-collar, this gives me inherent flare at the base plus I strongly suspect the cells in the collar-area are more 'ripe' for rooting than a random spot on a branch would be), I put them in a pea-gravel & coconut-coir mixture and spaced them through my garden so the 4 of them get different light-levels and I can see what's what! I did use IBA on them, I mixed ~1/3tsp IBA with ~1oz water and, before potting a piece, I'd score the base of it to expose more cambium and then heavily applied the IBA suspension/fluid to it before packing it into a pot with coir/rocks (that were pre-wetted, meaning I didn't water-in so the IBA stays in-place better - unsure if that's smart or not, it's increasing IBA but decreasing humidity/moisture at the cambium//substrate interface as it's not water-soluble and is inherently a 'barrier' of sorts, however minor!)