I need to trim my Live Oaks.. I'm gonna try to air layer a branch about 3 in.. Rather do that then just prune and throw away.
Could you elaborate on yours, specifically whether they're seedlings you've grown out (if so, how big did you get them?) or did you find materials and successfully reduce rootplates enough for bonsai?
I ask as someone who lives in an area where it's an outdoor greenhouse, and where live oak is the predominate broadleaf specie, yet have utterly given-up on yamadori they simply depend too-largely upon their tap-root and, even with >1yr spaced '2 step' collections (IE cutting the tap-root & chopping it, letting it heal in-ground) still failed. Think it was
@Leo in N E Illinois who told me he'd heard 1-in-10 for 'skilled' guys...
I got a ~7' tall one back in mid-Dec., was $10 at H.Depot in a 5gal, figured WTH since that would normally be way over $50, I chopped it right there in the parking lot, got home - expecting a decent-enough rootmass in that 5-gal - only to find a gigantic bulging taproot, tourniquette techniques had certainly been employed in its production, at any rate I said F-it and got the sawzall and the grinder w/ the 4" chainsaw-disk and got to work, got it to fit in a tiny (dollar-store sized
) oil-fluid pot, hoping it had enough radial/surface roots to survive.....stood as a stick for weeks, had a small push of buds that were killed on a cold night....couple weeks later, when curious because no buds but no signs of dying, I scuffed the top of the bare stick- was thick&green as my gut had told me and then to my surprise I got budding within inches of that the next couple days, they struggled for weeks - and still are, they're under artificial light in my laundry room right now because tonight's too-cold for them - but they're steadily growing and, after nearly 2mo w/o any chlorophyll, finally sporting some
it's a touch tall in its container (ie i'm not expecting final primary-leader to be as high as the most-vigorous bud) but a blank-slate once spring hits and it's budding harder, I don't know maybe it'll give a flush and die but I'm doubting that, not if it's pushing a flush this way, now, after spending so long dormantly waiting - as long as I protect it from the coldest nights, so another month ugh
Base is pretty great, thankfully there's enough radials for its health but makes it hard for me to really show much, here's the base though it has an incredibly abrupt flare to a 'plate'/disc type base, nice 360 symmetry/balance excepting one surface root which I can lose in-time......just need to be sure it takes, this guy had sooo much fine feeders that I think he was able to handle the loss of the tap-root!
Base:
@dresdraconius how's yours looking any changes or still that static position of last year's foliage? If I were you I'd be knicking (with the thinnest of blades!) the areas around the chop, to see where the living tissue // dieback line is (not that that inherently tells you much, I was sooo stoked on a piece *just* like yours a few years ago, someone had already "broken" it years before and it'd naturally regrown a new primary-leader at an appropriate height, I planned a 2-step collection so well, it survived and gave me 1 push of growth before it died on me
(remidns me of yours so much because of shape/size, mine was a wider stump with a low-ground protrusion, like something that was mostly-dead but the base, 360deg, hung-on and its now trying to regrow
