Hi Steve,

I personally love to airlayer maples, I find it very enjoyable and have always had good success. It sounds good that you started in the spring. One GREAT sign that the layer is taking is that new growth will begin and continue to appear above the airlayed area.

When should you seperate? That varries depending on the species and size of the layer that you want to seperate. I will post some pictures below of a trident I airlayerd with a 4 inch trunk. This took a single season, but I have airlayered smaller trident sections in 6-9 weeks.

You can also use many different means of rapping the area being airlayered, such as; a cut down plastic nursery pot, a clear seryan rap type of material, or a plastic bag or even I have seen tinfoil used and was successful (the tinfoil was used to absorb more heat from the sun to aid in rooting)

I prefer the cut down nursery pot method because its what I have laying around. I just gently take some soil away and see if roots are growing. The first step to the process is the area which you cut around the trunk to airlayer will begin to calous, from this calous roots will from....well hopefully:)

I don't have any current airlayer projects due to my leaving next week to study bonsai at Mr. Kunio Kobayashi's bonsai musuem in Japan.

Enjoy the pics and let me know if you need more advice or if I missed something...I tend to ramble on and therefore get off topic ;)

Matt Ouwinga

{{gwi:9661}}

{{gwi:9664}}

{{gwi:9666}}

These shots below are after the soil was gently washed off in the fall.

{{gwi:9668}}

{{gwi:9671}}

Planted in a nursery pot and let grow for a season to develop more roots. As of 5 minutes ago when I looked at my benches, I saw roots coming out of the holes in the bottom of the pot.

{{gwi:9673}}

And the bottom section that was left. No, nothing grew from this due to no dormant buds undneath the layered area line.

{{gwi:9675}}

Later,

Matt Ouwinga

BTW,

I would tend to not prune the area above the airlayer...growth equals roots.

Also, if you are not satisfied that there are enough roots, then leave it alone. You can leave the airlayer go for 2 seasons, just becareful the airlayer area of new roots does not freeze too long. With a bonsai in a pot that is easy to control, with a tree in your yard, that makes thing more difficult.

Matt Ouwinga

Thanks Matt, that was very helpful. Nice job on that trident.
The trees are both in the ground,no bringing them in. One is a small laceleaf about 1" caliper that had a big round graft about 2" above the soil line. I took off all the bark from halfway up the graft to the soil line(the top half of the graft should make a nice nebari right away) and put a cut pot around the tree resting on the ground. That one looks like it's doing really well and it's going to be a great bonsai. The other three are on branches 3/8 to 1/2 caliper of a good size Sango Kaku in the ground. Those are doing good too, I have pots around them too, so I carefully brushed away some of the bonsai soil and saw the little white nodes starting. I don't want to do that anymore now so I won't disturb things. Assuming that they continue to develop all summer, the main question is do I separate before or after leaf drop in the Fall. I'd like to do it before to see if the new roots can support the foliage, but if it's safer to wait, I will. Once the leaves drop on their own I guess you have to wait until spring to see if they leaf out. I would just leave them in the pots that they rooted in and overwinter them with the rest of my maples in an unheated breezway that stays aroun 40o. they should be fine there. Waddya think
Steve

Hi Steve,

I really don't think it matters when you seperate the layer from the parent stock as a long as there is enough roots in the airlayer container to support the foliage above it.

That is kinda a judgement call I guess. If I was in your situation, I would keep it attached as long as possible until the weather begins to turn and nights fall below 32.

Matthew Ouwinga

Thanks Matt, I'll do that Good luck with your studies
Steve