3 years ago I ground-layered an Acer Buergerianum that I put in a wooden growbox 4 years ago. Since that last post I kind of neglected the tree for almost 3 years. It just sat there in a corner of my garden getting watered together with the rest of the trees.

The plan was to remove the ground layer last year but for some reason that didn’t happen.

Today I finally found the time to see what had happened in those 3 years.

Ofcourse I forgot to take a picture before I started removing the screen mesh but anyway, here’s a picture right after I removed the screen mesh. It looks like some new roots grew…

Let’s look a little closer…

After removing the wooden growbox it’s obvious I can’t use it again, bottom was pretty rotten, just the way it should be.

After combing out most of the soil and cutting back the roots a great new nebari appeared, this was beyond my expectations. Like always the picture doesn’t do the real thing justice.

After potting up the tree it looked 10 times better than before. Now it’s time to start working the branches, but first I’ll let the poor thing recover for a while.

Close-up!

A few years ago I bought a small batch of Acer Palmatum Shishigashiras and Deshojo from a grower in the Netherlands. They were all small plants recently grafted on regular palmatum rootstock. Last year I repotted them into larger containers so the trunks could thicken up.

Now it’s time to see if I can ground layer them so the ugly graft won’t be a problem anymore and hopefully we get a nice nebari.

I’m doing a test on one of them this year. If it works out ok I’ll do the rest of them next year.

Here’s the volunteer:

Notice the section where the shishigashira part is grafted on regular palmatum rootstock. This junction will always be visible.

So first thing I did was taking off the bark with a sharp knife where I want the new roots to grow. Always be sure that you take off enough bark so the wound won’t callus over. The roots will sprout (hopefully) above the part where the bark was taken off.

Next thing I removed all of the cambium layer so the nutrition flow from the roots to the leaves is interrupted and the tree will be forced to grow new roots above the wound.

When this is done I cut the bottom out of a small nursery container so it could be placed around the trunk.

Last thing to do is to take some sphagnum moss, make it wet and fill the small nursery container with it. Make sure there’s a good layer of wet moss above the wound so the roots can start growing in a moist environment.

Normally the new roots should have grown by september and it’s possible to remove the air layer. I usually wait until repotting season in early spring to remove the air (ground) layer. More on this next year