Hey just for the hell of it I decided to see how viable air layering was. Turns out…very. It took I would say about 4 weeks but the mother was just sitting there and the resulting clone was massive. Probably could flip right after it gets established.
I might try it on a lower branch on a flowering plant like week 4 and see if I can root and reveg.
Anyway here are some pics. Just soil and some of those cheap prop spheres from Amazon.
I made them a little on the wet side. If I tightly squeezed the dirt 4-5 drops would come out instead of the single drop.
About 2 weeks in I dribbled some into one side of the ball. It was looking a little bit dry (I bet it was fine though).
I would recommend that you try and put the ball near a node or branch for it to rest on. I was nervous that the ball was going to slide and rip roots because I put one of them just mid branch.
I actually got them because I want to make a couple of clones of a native blueberry bush up in Maine on my family’s place. It’s been there since I was a kid and it produces a ton of tiny blueberry’s that taste amazing.
Grab a handful of the hydrated sphagnum moss and squeeze water from it. Then make the handful of moss into a ‘mini hotdog bun’ shape. The stem of the plant will be the ‘hot dog’. Wrap the moss around the selected node/nodes on the stem and seal it with:
Naw nothing special. Maybe I should have scratched a portion of the stem or something (it was a pretty woody stem) but I just slapped it on and hoped for the best. I bet trying different wetnesses or maybe some rooting gel I could speed things up considerably.
A small ziplock bag can also be used for this method.
Simply fill with your medium of choice-slit with knife across the width then fold over branch that’s been prepared (I scrape and coat with gel from aloe vera leaf)and secure with wire/cable ties/tape
In summer I’ve seen roots in 10days
Winter up to 30days
Absolutely genius! Thank you, I’m going to try compostable plastic bags, see if they hold together long enough, and tie with strips of phormium leaf for a biodegradable version, will keep you posted, thank you thank you for the pics!