Rooting Whole Japanese Maple Branches

[Veebs]

After reading @Roadrunner's post in the Aeroponic Propagation of JMs thread where he shared Mark Moreland's approach to create shohin trees by rooting whole sections of trees, I decided to try my hand. I didn't have all the right pieces available so I made do with what I had and seem to have been successful. I tried it on the old apex of a Japanese Maple that I had to cut off anyways to make room for a new leader and next year, will likely try it on nicer material.

Step 1 was preparing the bottle, cutting it in half and creating the holes to let the water in the reservoir below keep the soil most. The top was inverted, filled with regular bonsai soil(Kaizen mix) and inserted into the bottom of the bottle after that had been filled with water.
View attachment 562298

I then cut off the top of the JM, trimmed it back but still left a number of leaves.

View attachment 562299

Then, inserted the JM section into the soil and placed the whole contraption into a clear plastic, zip-loc bag.

View attachment 562300

The bag was sealed and left in a shady part of the garden with a check a few weeks in that showed no roots but healthy leaves. I put it back and left it there and just today, exactly two months after the start of the experiment, I noticed a root made its way all the way down to the holes over the water!

View attachment 562301View attachment 562302

My plan is to leave it for now and towards the end of August start to expose it progressively to more air/less humidity, before potting it up in September. @RoadManDenDron how have you handled the transition to a pot?

Next year I will probably try the approach in a propagator dome instead of the bag and also try applying rooting hormone to the stem before putting it in the soil.

No rooting hormone at the start?

 

[Veebs]

What do you think is the crux of this method? The water below that keeps the soil moist?

I wonder if you could take two shallow storage boxes, where they can kind of nest inside each other, and put water in the bottom one and then drill holes in the top one and fill it with soil and then have a whole tray of branches that you place in there. Instead of one at a time.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

Here’s a link to a more complete description by the originator of the method Mark Moreland. I gotta try it this year!

Mark Moreland Visit 03/09/24

Hello! We were very lucky to have a visit from Mark and Mingchen Moreland of UK Bonsai Association (UKBA) for a fascinating talk on propagation. When they aren’t busy organising and hosting e…

leicsbonsaiclub.wordpress.com

 

[RoadManDenDron]

What do you think is the crux of this method? The water below that keeps the soil moist?

Yes that's it, the humidity is the key, you can try the boxes, in fact from the article it looks like mark has tried boxes, the whole thing needs to sit in some kind of propagator tho

Many in the UK now keep their shohin and mame trees in bottles when they are not in show pots

@WNC Bonsai Thank you! That link is just what I was looking for!

 

[WNC Bonsai]

I found it interesting that in several of the photos in the article there were pine tree cuttings! I wonder how other conifers would work, such as Blue Atlas Cedar, which are notoriously impossible to root?

 

[pandacular]

I found it interesting that in several of the photos in the article there were pine tree cuttings! I wonder how other conifers would work, such as Blue Atlas Cedar, which are notoriously impossible to root?

My reading of the article was that pines weren’t taken as cuttings but just planted in those containers for development.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

My reading of the article was that pines weren’t taken as cuttings but just planted in those containers for development.

Ahh, missed that, too bad.

 

[Notsureaboutplantnames]

I am about to try this and I am looking for clarification on the setup.

In the link to the Mark M visit the inverted top does not sit in the water, just providing humidity, while @eplov90 has the top in the water.

I guess I will have to try them both.

 

[jeef16]

definitely going to be trying it out this year!!

 

[eplov90]

To be clear, in my example, the inverted bottle filled with soil did not have direct contact with the water, it was just above it.

 

[RoadManDenDron]

You need a little space between the top and the water or it stops drainage

You need to keep an eye as you water to keep it below the (upside down) lid

 

[Notsureaboutplantnames]

Thank you both for the responses

 

[MalsRFun in TN]

Saved a lot of bottles to try this in June on my Japanese maples and crab apples.