Ground growing elm progression and air layers

[Rodrigo]

Air layer has kept putting out new buds so I think I'm in the clear. I'll repot it in the spring probably into a grow bag, and depending on how it grows next year, I'll chop both trunks low down to improve taper



I've left the mother plant alone to see what happened with the top. It's been more than a week and the broken part is still green and growing, in comparison to the branches I cut off which turned brown in a day or two so I think it survived the breakage. I'm thinking I'll leave it over winter so it can keep thickening down low and will chop next year. Unfortunately I may be moving in March so I may have to chop in spring.



The next trunk section I plan on cutting to is growning and already thickening well. I'm hoping to get as much thickening as possible while it's still in the ground. At the ground, the base is 1.5" thick, which is insane considering the pencil thick trunk I planted in March of '23

 

[Rodrigo]

Update and general question/advice please and thank you!

Update: The elm in the ground didn't miss a stride in the top falling over. The new leader has kept growing and fattened up considerably even since the last update




The other side:


Now on to the advice.
I'm not sure if I'm staying at this house when my lease is up in March so I don't think chopping next summer is viable. As you can see it's still green and I don't think it's going to change color for another 3 weeks or a month. Should I chop now so hopefully it can start healing over this next month or wait until early spring but potentially have to chop and dig up at the same time?

Follow up question, I'm chopping at a perpendicular angle to the trunk, should I leave a stump or cut to the final height? Reason for the question is, if I'm trying to take advantage of it starting to heal while still in the ground, then leaving a stump would be pointless, right? Because I'd have to Recut it next year anyway

 

[Rodrigo]

Any ideas?

 

[Hack Yeah!]

I assume if the roots cooperate your chop will be in the back, I'd go ahead and cut it.

 

[Rodrigo]

With spring in full swing this elm is going nuts. I ended up chopping to the next trunk section at the end of November


Here it is today. It's probably 7-8ft tall and is thickening up nicely


After chopping I was worried that I'd get die back on the other side of chop. Not only did it not die back, it back budded all over the place down low, giving me good options for a future first branch. I shoot selected a couple of weeks ago and left only a few options for now. When they harden off I'll prune them short to not get overly thick branches that are out of proportion in the "final tree".


This year's plan is to chop down low again for the next trunk section in mid summer and also want to ground layer. Unfortunately since this was the first tree I ever planted into the ground, I planted it waaaay too deep. This spring I dug around the trunk to see if I needed to dig it up and root prune and there's like 8" of trunk underground before I saw any roots so I'd like to ground layer basically right at ground level for a fat shohin.

The air layer I did on it last year was done on August 3rd and was separated on September 7th and the tree kept growing until late November so there's definitely time in the fall. I'm not sure what to do first because I know that it needs leaves to power the new roots for the ground layer and if I chop in the summer, I'm not sure how much it'll have grown by fall for the layer. But if I wait until the fall to chop the trunk, I think I'll lose any taper seeing how quickly this thing thickens up - the next trunk section would probably be as thick as the first part by the fall if I leave it until then.

Would you chop and then layer? Or layer and then chop?

 

[leatherback]

I would seriously consider smoothening out that chop before chop the big branch

 

[Rodrigo]

I would seriously consider smoothening out that chop before chop the big branch

Good call. Ill go ahead and do that this weekend. Something like this?

 

[leatherback]

Good call. Ill go ahead and do that this weekend. Something like this?

I expect you will find that the edge of the cut has dried out already so probably the tree will tell you what it considers a natural angle

 

[Rodrigo]

I expect you will find that the edge of the cut has dried out already so probably the tree will tell you what it considers a natural angle

That's what I expected too but it didn't dry out and is actually budding from the cut edge


With that being said, is the line from my previous post a good line to cut back to transition the trunk?