A couple of years ago I bought this hawthorn from a bonsai grower near me.
It looked like it was a very nice stubby tree.
But when I got home and dug down a tiny bit I realised that, rather than being a stubby tree, it was actually an awful inverse taper mess that had 2 loooong straight roots and pretty much nothing else.
Worse still, there was a big scar very low, and I doubted that there was any way to work around the root problem.
So I left it untouched and pondered.
One option was to use the 2 looong straight roots as the basis for some sort of raised-root style. But above the roots was an ugly knob that should have been the flared base of the stubby tree. I pondered some more.
Having cleared the top inch of soil from the pot and exposing the trunk to light and air, a new shoot emerged very low down. It made me think that I could ground layer the tree. However I needed the shoot to (a) survive and (B) put on some girth and a few leaves. I had to wait until it looked like it would make it, and not be so delicate that my ham fists run it off while clearing the layer area.
This spring I decided to start the air layer. It has budded out fully, the leaves are starting to harden and it is layering time.
This is the tree as it looked today before the work started. You will note the weird roots. These simply extend straight like that all the way to the bottom of the pot, where they curl around and only then do the side roots begin. Hopeless.
You will also see, on the right at the bottom where there should be roots, an old knob . It suggested only deadwood on the side of the tree. When I got the tree there was nothing above it. It desperately needed some roots to grow in that void, but I could not see how. That area seemed dead on first examination.
But happily the shoot that I am so pleased about emerged a couple of weeks after I exposed the roots.
20170411_162826 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrTo give you an idea, here is the soil line when I bought it. I had imagined a lovely little mame size tree with a great flare under that trunk.
2017-04-11_06-38-16 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrHere it is from the other side. The lowest branch on the left was not there when I first uncovered the roots.
20170411_162830 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrThus I set about clearing the bark from my layer site. As there are 2 roots close together I needed to do some nifty carving. A curved blade grafting knife is a brilliant tool for this job.
This pic shows why the low down new branch was so important. I suspect without it there was zero prospect of any rootd forming on that side. Maybe with this branch there's a fighting chance.
20170411_163926 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrDon't you love the kinky second root standing akimbo? Me either.
20170411_163934 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr
20170411_163938 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrNevertheless it is basically a good little tree in many ways
20170411_163945 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrThis is planned as an airlayer, and teh simple solution was to pop the little pot into a bigger and deeper pot so that the exposed area could be buried under a layer of cat litter and John Innes mix:
20170411_164219 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr
20170411_164226 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrThe base was buried so that the lowest branch is level with the soil. It grew slightly downwards, so I had to gently wire it up before planting. Here you can see it running off to the left.
20170411_165036 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrThis is the tree ready to be forgotten for 2 seasons. The long sacrifice branch is intended to give vigour for the development of roots. My instinct tells me that you need a load of leaves to force a tree to produce roots when you are layering it. So there is no pruning planned at all this season.
20170411_190720 by BrendanR2012, on FlickrBy the middle of next summer I will probably do a first styling cut back so that it can have a second flush before winter. The spring after that i am expecting to have a successfully rooted hawthorn. I must MUST resist the temptation to check it in the intervening winter. I suspect there could be roots, but checking them could do damage if they are small and struggling. Never having layered a hawthorn I am cautious. Some say easy, some say hard.
20170411_190650 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr
20170411_190704 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr
