I have a question for everyone here. Has anyone here air layered a sharpes pygmy from its grafted root stock. I have a decent tree that I have been thinking of of air layering the top out to eliminate the grafting point. It is minimal right now but the tree is still very young. I’ve attached a pic after my pruning a couple of weeks ago.
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following for advice. I am planning on air layering my Jap maple that I have been growing for 15 years in a pot.
Sharp’s pygmy is a dwarf variety of palmatum, the graft may be there to give the tree some vigor. I’d only layer it when the trunk line is pretty close to the target dimensions.
I have a dwarf variety (Little Princess) on its own root stock and it’s an extremely slow grower. I’ve owned it for more than 10 years and it went from a pencil-sized whip to a thumb-sized trunk after 7 years in a growing box and 3 years in the ground. I could literally cut the primary branches back to a stub and put it in a mame pot.
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I’m not seeing a graft. Just nice nebari and smooth bark on the trunk.
There is a color change and a minor ring. Nothing to get excited about.
Closeup ?
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@KurtP here is a close up of the graft. I know I am being a little overly picky on the graft.
@Michael_P I understand that it is a dwarf. I have five different varieties of Japanese maples throughout my property and as bonsai. I have also worked in the landscape industry for over 30 years. I moved this summer to a new home on just over 4 acres. I have started to create a traditional japanese garden around our pond. Over the next five years I plan on planting around 40 different varieties of acer palmatum, acer shirasawanum, and acer japonicum. I appreciate your input on your experience, as we can always learn from each others past trails.
That graft probably won’t get any better looking over time, I would do the layer. Sharps Pygmy does fine on its own roots. In fact many of them you find in the nurseries aren’t grafted, but are on their own roots.
Thanks @Roger_Snipes I will give a it a couple more years of growth before I would be ready to layer it. I might put it out there in the forum Q&A for Ryan to weight in.