I noticed this morning that my Giant Amber cutting from UCD has a healthy-looking root that originates above the lowest branch. I'm thinking of cutting through the stem below this root in order to divide the forked tree into two individual plants; however, I'm concerned about separating the roots in the pot. Would it be best to make the cut and then see if I can gently pull the aerial-rooted piece up out of the soil without disturbing the main trunk's roots? I'm guessing that all of the fine roots and root hairs will get pulled off, but that if I nip off most of the leaves to offset the reduced water uptake, and then repot it to a shady spot with a cover to reduce water loss through the remaining leaves, it might make it. Thoughts?

 I would see what how entangled the roots look below soil first, if not easily seperated i would just airlayer the right branch which if mine i would do instead .
Here is one airlayer branch i did similar size after about a month.
A forum member has this plant and i last heard it was doing just fine.

You could girdle below the root on the branch you want to remove, which would force it to grow more roots for this branch. Then, maybe when dormant, unpot the whole plant, untangle the roots, separate the two "trees" and report.

I am amazed why/how that fat-root exists?

Ken
The best thing will be to wait until spring and try one of the methods suggested above. It will avoid cutting the leaves to match the roots disturbance etc. It is just one winter away. You will not have to look after two plants until the spring when plants have better chance of establishing fast.

George,

Thanks All, for the recommendations. I like the idea of making the separation when it's dormant, so I'll girdle it now below the aerial root to encourage more root growth down below, and maybe do a small, baggie-sized air layer as well to get a few new roots started up higher, on the main stem, and then wait till the leaves have all dropped before taking the final step. Would it be best to hold off on separating the two sections until it's close to breaking dormancy, or should it be done soon after the leaves drop so the roots have more time to adjust?

Gorgi--When I was rooting these, I had them in a very high-humidity set-up.  Too high--several of them got moldy, but a few responded by growing aerial roots. I didn't pay much attention at the time because it seemed normal, after seeing Jon's photos of cuttings that sprouted roots in a trash bag with no soil at all. I didn't figure they'd amount to anything, and didn't notice until today that this root had grown all the way down and into the soil.

Gorgi,

With what did you "hack" your tree in half?  :)

Thanks,

noss

An old wood saw.

Thanks gorgi.  When you said hack, I thought there was NO WAY I could use a hatchet--I'd end up cutting something vital off where it belongs.  A saw sounds like a good deal, though.

noss

I separated these this morning. I had girdled it in the fall, and since it already had a substantial root in the ground decided to try something close to Gogi's "hack" suggestion. The small section came away without much damage to the main rootball (I hope the little one still has enough root to rebound from the "operation"), so I just repotted both and will keep my fingers crossed.

Nice work Ken, looks like a winner!

I'd say you've got two fig trees there now Ken. Just the smallest amount of roots sometimes seems to make all the difference when it comes to figs.

A neighbor of mine has a few celeste (I think) trees. I've seen him do some pretty brutal chopping on his. I mean that literally. He dug up a few and chopped them (with his axe) into many smaller divisions. All of the ones that had just a little bit of roots seemed to make it just fine.

Fully agree with your observations Bill on how figs can take abuses. I have done it myself on large trees and would be doing it to at least 5 more in-ground plants where I have to run power saw, ax, shovel to cut their roots. I have also mailed many small suckers with say 3 to 5 roots measuring about an inch and they survive inspite of over 14 mailing days. These are all done during their dormancy.

I've had similar experiences hacking other plants into pieces and getting them to grow again, but except for a few cuttings and a large airlayer (the jury's still out on that one) hadn't tried it on figs. However, this one was such a natural candidate, I couldn't resist. Too bad it wasn't a Black Madeira or something a little more exciting!

Hi Gorgi,

I was going through some older threads and came across this one.

Earlier this season, I needed to repot my Black Celeste and recalled that you said you used a saw to cut yours apart.

I used a regular pruning saw and cut the Black Celeste in two and repotted both halves and they have done very well, so far.

Thanks again for the post.  It helped.

noss

Here's a progress update on the Giant Amber's "natural air layer." It has grown like a weed, and aside from the mild FMV-mottling visible in the closeup, appears to be very healthy. It's in full sun, but is packed in closely with other potted figs so there's some mutual shading going on.

Hi Ken,

That little tree has done well. 

Why do you have all the holes in the side of the bottle?

Thanks,

noss

Thanks Noss, I was pleased to see how quickly it recovered from being separated from the main plant. The holes are for aeration--I wanted to be sure there would be plenty of oxygen available to the roots.

Thanks, Ken.  Would it be a good idea to put more holes into the sides of regular pots, as well?

noss

I'm not sure--I haven't been at this long enough to make many comparisons about what works and what doesn't based on my own observations. I think it's probably more important with young, small plants (i.e., recent cuttings) than with bigger ones, so I haven't put extra holes in any of my bigger, black, "real" pots.