Fall separation anxiety

Beginners
1

I air layered à trident maple about 3 months ago. We’ve had a lot of Fall heat Sept and Oct. the overall tree has gotten a little scorched but most of the leaves dropping from the top of the tree and Fall color are probably just seasonal.

I just can’t figure out whether I should separate or not. Take a look at the difference in vigor and foliar density difference between the air layered branches and similar neighboring branches of the same thickness.

  • Does this look like leaf drop or à dying air layered branch? How could I tell for sure?
  • If the branch is weak should I wait to separate after winter (Bay Area mild winter), or should I separate now for vascular growth season
  • In general for deciduous, would I separate when leaves start dropping or early fall well before leaf drop?

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2

I’m my experience tridents can be notoriously stubborn to air layer. I’ve often seen the leaf drop on branches you describe and likely what you’re seeing is in relation to the air layer. this season was tough for late season air layers due to heat and drought, many of mine failed due to the trees shutting down from heat, just my observations! When it finally cooled off the trees became more active again and several pushed roots finally.

My suggestion is check your air layer at 8 weeks see what’s going on? You might have to re-scar the callous that formed and wrap it up again, this happens often with trident maples. Leave it thru winter if it’s gonna push spring will be the time it does! Good luck!

3

Thanks for the tip. Im going to follow your advice and take this approach.

What are some of the things you observe from ‘shutting down’ based on mid-Fall heat? We’re still having 85-deg days and September was hotter than August. On my larch bonsai, which was repotted this year. I noticed a lot of early color change in the first weeks of September. I was wondering whether it was heat damage or maybe I had underwatered. The tree was repotted so wasnt in the best energy-state through the season. But all of the leaves kind of stabalized and the tree has being doing OK through the rest of the fall. Nothing really dropped and the discoloration didnt spread.

Maybe this was heat-related. A lot of the deciduous I noticed in the environment, full-sized trees, and street-trees, also had similar discolorations around this time but all of the leaves hung on for the most part.