My form of a air layer turorial in 12 photos.
1 - April 26 - Tried to remove 1 inch length of bark but couldn't so just cut off strips. Pic not to good (too windy) but I think you can get the idea. No rooting hormone used.
2 - placed the air layer cup around the striped bark. Got these air layering "cups" from Bass' website. Yea, I know I could have used soda bottles but I wanted to support a fellow website member.
3 - packed the cup with damp spaghnum moss
4 - lid in place
5 - back up a bit to take this photo
6 - wrapped with aluminum foil to keep out the sun
7 - now you know why I was air layering this tree.....very lanky.
8 - plenty of roots on July 5 : ) I really didn't think this was going to work since I couldn't remove all the bark and with all the rain, many time the entire cup was at least half full with rain water.
9 - cup off, now you can get a good look at the roots, I cut off the bottom of the branch you can see in the photo
11 - cut this off since it was going to be at or below soil level
12 - branch gone
13 - finished product. Will keep in a shaded area until new growth is seen.