Air layer now.

Al

What does one reccomend for putting on the air layered cut?
I am ready to do my first and have been reading several bonsai books all about same as to technique but different as to what to put over it. 1. says put clay around wound then wet spagnum moss and finnaly polyethene to hold it together. 2. says to put root hormone over wound then wet moss and poly.

Just wondering what has worked for others.

thanks,
John

you can use plastic bags--->need at least 3 hands

can cut up the side of a plastic pot, wrap it around the area that you cut away, put the peat or moss in, then can cover with plastic

never heard of the clay around wound

I don't know about putting clay on the would, it might actually heal it and stop it from rooting...

start the process after all the buds have sprouted in mid to late spring (april - may), you're going to severly stunt it's growth but it's going to developed excellent rootage instead.

create the scar somewhere at or below the graft because host tree will do a better job of nutrient transfer than if the sangu used it's own developed roots...if you're worried about color mis-match, the red bark turn grey no matter what.

i'm assume the the graft union is less than a foot off the ground. If so use another 1 gallon or so, that way when you water you don't have to water the layer-baggy and the bottom pot separately.

Use Sphagnum Moss, because it can hold a lot of water and it has natural abilities to fend off the bad stuff for plants. This is not the Peat moss that my mom uses in her tomato garden. Nor is this Spanish moss people use to hide dirt in decorative pots.

so.

1. soak the sphagnum in some some rooting solution like (hydroponic chemicals, superthrive, b1 etc.) - couple of hours to soak.

2. prepare aluminum foil baggy or vertically slit pot w/cut-out hole in bottom.

3. shave out a large collar (1" high - i cut a tiny slit one time and only got 1/8 of the ring to root.)

4. secure item #2 on to plant, powder the cut, place the sphagnum into item #2.

Thanks for the help and info. The idea of clay on the wound is from an old Japanese Bonsai book. The description was not any more informative than the above posts, but looking closely at the diagrams it would appear the roots grow at the top of the cut and the clay would protect the wound. Not sure why but it is in there and they have been doing this type of thing for some time.

I think I'll go with the above suggestions and just use root hormone and sphagnum moss.

Sorry to hijack this thread beaniebeagle, thought we could both learn on this one. I managed to get my air-layer done today. Actually I have a 2' tall bonsai maple in training. It has a beautiful trunk and had some early pruning at the nursery so it has a decent start on branch selection. Problem was it was much too tall for the future shape and spread. The top has a side apex that banches off to 2 more forced apexes. This spot was the right spot to try the air-layer as it will give me another nice small tree from the top and the rest of the tree will be in proportion.

If all goes well of course. I managed to get a presoaked pack of sphagnum around the wound with hormone sprinkled inside and I got the plastic tied around without too much of a mess.

Finger crossing time now. Any other advice other than making sure it does not dry out?