Kojo no mai cherry airlayer

[Sootys trees]

A few weeks back or so I air layered my small cherry tree which I planted in the ground back in early march. It’s been heavily fertilised and has made great progress this year.
There was a mass of roots growing down over the future cut site and I didn’t want to have to lose any roots by moving them when cutting so I decided to nip it in the bud and cut it today, after carefully removing the moss I was pleased to see a really strong mass of roots all over the base…
I wired and potted it in a very course substrate of moss, perlite, sand, potting soil and acidic compost and watered it heavily.
After this I decided to remove at least a third of the upper foliage tips as there was a very large amount in comparison to the root ball, I was in fact going to ask for advice with this but thought the answer would be yes from my research.

The tree remaining tree is the most important thing here as I was going to have to loose this portion at some point due to inverse taper in the future, wether it was from basic hard pruning or a layer…

The tree will now remain in shade until it shows some growth or further root development,

I’m really happy with the results, second airlayer success this year and ever










This the remaining tree

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Nice Job!

Are you thinking of splitting these two sections next year? Looks like there are enough roots and the two sections appear to be two stand alone trees.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Sootys trees]

Nice Job!

Are you thinking of splitting these two sections next year? Looks like there are enough roots and the two sections appear to be two stand alone trees.

Cheers
DSD sends

Hi, thank you

It’s definitely a good option, once the roots have hardened I’ll see how they can be separated, two trees, in this case three trees are better than one.

I’ll keep this thread updated

 

[Maiden69]

Nice start! I'm going to have to look into this cultivar, my yoshino leaves are 3"+ and I wanted a kinda smaller cherry. This may be the right one for me.

 

[Sootys trees]

Nice start! I'm going to have to look into this cultivar, my yoshino leaves are 3"+ and I wanted a kinda smaller cherry. This may be the right one for me.

Thank you ,
They’re really nice in spring, nice flowers and grow very bushy and fast.

I’ll probably keep this in the ground for a couple of years now, I want it to be a big bonsai with large branches and trunk…

I also cleaned up that raised cut with a blade,

 

[Maiden69]

I’ll probably keep this in the ground for a couple of years now, I want it to be a big bonsai with large branches and trunk…

If they grow like the yoshino it should be fairly quick in the ground. Here is where mine stands after 3 year in an above ground bed. But as you can see, the leaves on mine are HUGE! It was on a #3 Rootpouch and I repot it on the same size.



Rootpouch after 3 year in the ground


After the first root prune and repot.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Kojo no mai is also called the Fuji Cherry as it grows around Mt Fuji. It’s a slower grower with good branching and very resistant to disease. Think may also be called Prunus Okane.

Got Okane from Evergreengardenworks a year or two ago and have been playing with it to see how it reacts to trunk building pruning. Seems to be very responsive.




Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Sootys trees]

If they grow like the yoshino it should be fairly quick in the ground. Here is where mine stands after 3 year in an above ground bed. But as you can see, the leaves on mine are HUGE! It was on a #3 Rootpouch and I repot it on the same size.

View attachment 559034

Rootpouch after 3 year in the ground
View attachment 559033

After the first root prune and repot.
View attachment 559035

View attachment 559031

View attachment 559032

That’s great to hear, 3 years for a tree this thick in a not a long time I think.
Have you experimented with defoliation for smaller leaves ? I’ve always thought this would have be done fairly often, but I hear it also weakens the tree.
In the ground though I’m sure it has the resources to recover well.
The tree looks great, nice bark. I may also try some grow bags in the future.

 

[Sootys trees]

Kojo no mai is also called the Fuji Cherry as it grows around Mt Fuji. It’s a slower grower with good branching and very resistant to disease. Think may also be called Prunus Okane.

Got Okane from Evergreengardenworks a year or two ago and have been playing with it to see how it reacts to trunk building pruning. Seems to be very responsive.

View attachment 559103
View attachment 559104

Cheers
DSD sends

Ah yes Fuji cherry also.
I love the branching it grows in jagged lines from bud to bud, nice natural movement.
Looks nice, they make nice literati or informal uprights, a large literati would look nice, even left in the ground..

 

[AshleyMammal]

I adore kojo no mai/fuji cherry. They’re beautiful in growth habit and leaf size. However, they are anything but quick to grow!

 

[Maiden69]

That’s great to hear, 3 years for a tree this thick in a not a long time I think.
Have you experimented with defoliation for smaller leaves ? I’ve always thought this would have be done fairly often, but I hear it also weakens the tree.
In the ground though I’m sure it has the resources to recover well.
The tree looks great, nice bark. I may also try some grow bags in the future.

I have not experiment with defoliation, as the tree has been ground grown all the time. I think that will play once I move it into a pot. Usually the size of the leaf gets smaller as the tree ramifies, but on the picture above the tree was a full 5'x5' bush with lots of branches. Hopefully the pot will help once I move it in.

Think may also be called Prunus Okane.

Fuji are different, I seen a few in person, big double light pink flowers. But I did notice that they do advertise Okame and Kojo No Mai as Fuji trees, and when doing a search for images there are various species shown from white to pink flowers, singles and doubles...





Kojo No Mai has single pink with "red" in the inner petals.


This one is advertised as Okame, almost identical to Kojo No Mai.

 

[Maros]

Good success with layering. Cuttings also works with almost 100% success rate according to my experience. Based on foliage and growth pattern seems similar to one I have. Picture from spring