Air layer of crab apple tree

Hello all,

This crab apple tree is set for removal due to up coming landscaping.


I was just wondering what people generally look for when choosing branches, this tree has some pretty odd growth patterns and reverse taper in places.

I may also look at chopping the trunk reducing the root ball and seeing if it survives.

It would be my first attempt at an air layer so I thought I would test it on a subject that will be going anyway.

I have a couple of sticks in pots that I might be brave enough to talk about in the future, many thanks.

I look for good taper and lack of scars

Not ethat layering will take 4-8 weeks. So if your landscaping arrives before july.. Hurry!

I have several trees I have been planning on for over a year. They were 10-12 feet/3-4 meters high, so I cut them off last year, waited a year, and have been digging them up and putting them in huge pots - huge meaning something that will hold as much root ball as I can dig up. Most of the pots are 18"/ 1/2 meter across and at least as deep, some larger.

Last Saturday somebody showed up at the bonsai work group with a trident maple that had been 15 feet/5 meters tall two days earlier now was 18" tall, and sitting in a bonsai pot maybe 12"/ 1/3 meter long and maybe 4"/10 centimeters deep. She said the person whose yard it was in had done this many times before and the tree will do fine.

That seems like a lot of root chopping to me. We'll know a year from now.

These root reductions work well on many deciduous species, assuming they were in excellent health, and were collected with the right aftercare, at the right time of year. The tree is then full of energy, and will never be as strong again as at time of collection. So often you can do these drastic reductions on a newly collected tree, which would kill it a few years later. Trik is knowing when to collect and how to keep them afterwards.

Thanks for the advice I will get to work on it today.