Hey guys,

Glad to join this excellent community. As a (relative) newbie, I'm interested to know what zone I live in. I'm located in SE London, England. Anybody out there know how I can find out?

Secondly, over the years, I've developed a full-proof air layering technique that allows me to take 5' - 6' plants off the parent tree. That's right........6'. That's equivalent to @ least 3 yrs growth where I live. The point here is that the recipient gets ripe figs in the first yr of planting out, 2nd yr @ the very latest, instead of the more normal 3-4yrs from cutting-size plants. My method may not be unique to me, but if anybody out there is interested and would like to do the same, I'd be glad to share my method with you.

Bye for now,

Loquat1,

from what I found on line. You are 8b/9a hardiness zone. However your heat zone is only 2.

Karla

not much heat....hardly any sun.....but great fish and chips!

costas,

welcome to the forum. i would definitely like to hear you method. more detail the better. i'm a newbie.

pete

Hey guys (and Karla),

Well, thx for the info., and the warm welcome.

Not much sun eh? Well, that may be true of some parts in the UK, but down here in the SE there's enough to give me 40-60 ripe figs every year (Italian Purple, but not sure of exact variety yet), and about 6-10 of another variety that I haven't identified yet, but has a taste that is so outrageously good, it has to be the standard by which all others are judged.

Oops, wife calling me - wants me to watch Penn & Teller with her. So sorry, have to cut off now, but will get back to you all anon. Promise. Ciao for now.

Ok Pete & Eli, here goes:

Intro: This ain't exactly rocket science, & I'm not claiming a unique method. All I can claim is that I've not seen it described or done this way anywhere else, but that doesn't mean I'm the first to think of or even do it this way. It's basically just a variation on the standard method, which I found totally impractical and unsatisfactory, especially when it comes to producing viable larger plants from the parent tree.

Have you ever tried to enclose a ball of sphagnum moss in foil/polythene etc around the wound? Well, I tried several times, and the result was risible. And even if I succeeded, the resulting root ball would not be sufficient to sustain a 6' plant anyway. So I reasoned that there has to be a better way. And of course there is. It was just a case of thinking it thru & coming up with a better solution. You could say it was a case of necessity being the mother of invention (tho admittedly, not much of an invention!). Or, as somebody famously once said in a film after using a pair of live wires to restart an arrested heart, 'improvazione' (yep, he was Italian).

So, preamble over, here's the method:

1.  At least 2 mnths before the end of the growing season (it needs that long for the roots to grow) select a suitable candidate for the air layer. Since you want to produce a substantial plant from the off, it had better be at least 4'-5'. The bigger the better, so if 6' is available, you might as well be ambitious, right? Pick a branch that is as 'true' (ie straight) as possible – it makes for a more attractive result.

2.  Remove any side shoots/leaves etc from the first 2' of your branch. Your gonna need most of that for the root ball. Yeah, that's right - upwards of 15” of roots inside this baby. Awesome, or what?

3.  Now, rap a black sack (or similar) around the base of your branch, covering as little width as possible, so that you make a shape resembling a doughnut (next time I do this, I'll try to post some photos to illustrate what I'm describing, but I hope this is sufficient for the time being). Now, secure your 'doughnut' with string or sellotape so that it doesn't unravel.

4' branch – make that a 2 - 2.5 ltr bottle; 5' branch - 3 ltr bottle; 6' branch or bigger, – better make that a 4 ltr bottle, just to be on the safe side, but 3 ltr is prob still ok. Well, you've probably guessed the rest by now, but I'll continue anyway.

5.  Now, remove the spout of your bottle at the point where it just starts to get thin enough to cut with a sharp knife (a stanley knife will do the trick – that's a box cutter for the benefit of our US cousins). A word of warning – please, no digits in front or below the blade. EVER. Blades, knives, etc. have a habit of slipping/flying off plastic, and I don't want a stream of lawsuits heading off in my direction, thx all the same!

6.  Remove the base of your plastic bottle (again, sharp knife, scissors - whatever works for you), then cut along its entire length in a straight line, this time using good quality heavy-duty scissors. If your bottle has a rectangular x-section, I find cutting along one of the corners makes for a better enclosure. You now have a semi-rigid enclosure that is flexible enough to open up and wrap around the branch – but not quite yet.

8.  Put some rooting powder or gel on the wound, then 'open' your bottle & wrap around the branch so that the spout end makes contact with your 'doughnut'. Now either tie some string around your bottle, or else use sellotape to seal some of the open seam that you cut along its length. The idea is to stop the bottle opening up as you fill it with moss.

9.  Make sure your moss is damp without being dripping wet, and of course make sure you've got enough to finish the job. You're gonna need a lot more than just a ball to fill this baby. So, start filling that bottle, & push in with a stick as necessary if you notice any unfilled pockets. Make sure you fill right up to the top of the bottle, which should guarantee that the wound is fully covered. Also important, ensure the moss is evenly distributed inside the bottle so that the branch 'travels' approx. down the centre of the bottle.

10.  Now, wrap a black (or any other opaque) sack around the bottle, starting at the base of the branch and working up to the top. Cover the open end of the bottle as well, & tie around the branch just above the bottle so that the moss is fully enclosed. Secure the sack/opaque covering with string or gardening wire.

11.  After about 2-3 wks, inspect the moss for moisture. Don't let it dry out. If it's still moist, continue to inspect at weekly intervals. If it's starting to dry out, top up with some water – roughly a mug full should do it.

12.  Two months is normally sufficient to produce a root ball that will support even a 6' branch, but if you want to 'cook' it for 3 months to be sure, that's fine, providing you're still within the growing season. When you think it's had enough time, remove the covering around the bottle. You should see roots grown all the way down to the spout end of the bottle. If not, then it needs a bit longer.

14.  DON'T panic if your new plant sheds some/all of its leaves, fruit, etc., and most certainly DO NOT discard it as a failure. That happened to 2 of mine so far, yet I still saw new growth in the following year. My best guess is that the shedding of existing new growth represents some kind of survival mode for the plant, so it goes into an early dormancy to ensure basic life support.

15. The plant should be planted out in the garden straight away. If you delay doing this for more than 3/4 days, make sure you don't allow the root ball to dry out. It doesn't need to be soaking wet - just damp to the touch. Don't delay planting for more than 10 days though – you might risk its viability. Alternatively, you can over-Winter indoors in its 1st year by potting it instead. This has the advantage of extending its 1st growing season, and improves your chances of seeing ripe fruit in the 1st year. If you use this method, plant out in the middle of your Summer, but before you do that, you should also give it as much daytime Sun exposure as possible to 'acclimatize' your plant. Bring it back indoors in the evenings, especially if they are cold.

16. At the risk of stating the obvious, make sure you plant with the shoot vertical to the ground/pot, not the root system. Otherwise, you'll end up with a wonky plant! Ensure the root ball is fully covered by the soil

17. Choose a south-facing position if you have that luxury (or as near south as you can manage if you don't), preferably against a wall or fence. It thrives in direct sunlight, so make sure you position it so that the top of the leaves are also south-facing.

18. Conventional wisdom says that this plant does best if root growth is restricted - completely anti-intuitive, I know. Restriction is achieved by lining the floor and/or walls of the hole with bricks or hardcore. Or failing that, a semi-permeable membrane. My problem with this advice is that the only occasion on which I tried it, the plant failed to thrive, so I have my doubts about its wisdom. Might be best to ignore the experts on this one.

19.  The soil doesn't need to be treated or especially rich, just well-drained. So if your soil-type is heavy clay, mix in some general purpose compost first, especially if there was a plant there before. The loamy type (no peat) suits this plant best. Sand will also improve drainage and help break up the clay.

20. Remove the plastic covering of the root ball by gently pulling away from the plant, taking care not to break/damage the roots - they can be quite fragile. DON'T attempt to remove any of the moss surrounding the roots. It's not necessary, and you risk damaging them.

21. It is a deciduous plant, so don't be alarmed when you see the leaves drop off in the Autumn/Winter - your fig is almost certainly still alive and kicking, and you will see new growth in the following season.

22. Don't be too disappointed if the fruit on the plant also drops off. Pinch off any unripe fruit still on the plant by the end of October - it won't survive our zone 8 Winters anyway. The fruit is ripe (often developing a colour in the process) when it 'droops' and is soft to the touch when squeezed. Warning: The milky fluid exuded by fruit & leaves is a skin irritant, so wash after coming into contact with it.

23. Once out in the open, very little maintenance is required. Water and feed during the growing season (roughly March – September) as you would any young fruit plant - 2/3 times per mnth is sufficient. Deadwood should be removed in late Summer, and unwanted growth can be removed by pruning during the Winter, or you can google air-layering to find out how to propagate new plants for your friends/relatives as a way of controlling size/spread. Left unchecked, it will take over that part of your garden/plot in 15-20 yrs.

24. If you need more information, help, or guidance, don't forget the wealth of on-line resources also available to you. Regardless of variety, any on-line advice you come across should be generally applicable.

Well, I hope that's clear enough & helpful to somebody out there, but if I've failed at any point, please let me know, & I'll do my best to clarify.

Happy air-layering, & good luck.

Apologies, something gone awry with the formatting. Guess that's what you get if you copy/paste from MS Office compatible software. I think it's still intelligible (just), but I'll try to tidy it up when I've got a bit more time on my hands.

costas,

thanks for the information. other than the british English bit, i understand your method. i believe it's the same method most people use here. i'll be trying this soon. thanks.

cheers,
pete

Welcome loquat from the bayous of Louisiana. I've done something similar with small bottles but never nothing that large. I do have a few nice 4 foot branches I want to air layer so I guess I'll get myself some large bottle and give it a go. Thanks.
"gene"

ps: what's the significance of the name loquat. I love loquats and have several growing in my yard.

Thanks for the description, Loquat. The bottle size-to-height recommendation is helpful, and it's nice to know you've had success with such large air layers. I thought I was pushing my luck with a four-footer, but apparently the sky's the limit!

Pete - let me know what English bit you didn't get, & I'll try to 'Americanise' it for you. So 'my' method is widely used over there is it? Frankly, I would have been surprised if nobody else had hit on this idea before. It is such an obvious solution that it just cries out to be done this way.

Gene from the Bayou - A man after my heart. I also have Eriobotrya japonica growing in my gdn - 3 in fact. And we just love the fruit of this tree, as well as our figs. So I adopted the name as my username in honour of this fabulous fruit. It took me an age to identify it correctly, because the Cypriots call the fruit mespila. That is a definite misnomer, because it immediately identifies the fruit as that of Mespilus Germanicus, the common European medlar. They are related (they both belong to the same family - Rosacae, the rose family), but they are of course quite different, as reflected in their Latin classification. The Greeks call them mousmoulla, which is botanically more accurate. Most of the English-speaking world knows them as Japanese plum, Japanese medlar (again, somewhat confusing), or loquat. Well, I just hope you're still awake after all that!

Ken - Go for it. You'll be amazed how well this works. I've added point 15. to my description of the method, and clarified point 7., so plse re-visit before you try it, and good luck to all of you. But please let me know how you get on.

Regards from the old country. And hope you manage to sort out your credit card soon!!!

costas,

believe it or not that's my idea of humor. as usual it fails to amuse anyone :) i understand queen's english perfectly or as close as possible (another attempt).

i'll be trying my first air layering in next week or two. i'm trading some cuttings, and i offered sucker or air layer if i can get it done. this will be much small in scale than what you are doing. final plant will be about 1 foot above the soil, and the root mass will be coming from 20 oz bottle.

either way, thanks for your info. i'm a newbie and you info does help.

cheers,
pete

Glad to be of help Pete, and sorry I missed the irony/humour. We Brits are usually pretty sharp on picking up on that, but my humour radar must have been switched off this time round.

I'm flattered that you think my English approximates to that used by Royalty (humorous or otherwise). I liberally sprinkle my posts with some very ungrammatical usage, such as 'gonna' and 'ain't', but as these are used 'knowingly', I allow myself a certain amount of latitude. You understood all that, right?

Anyway, good luck with your first air layer. I'm sure you'll do just fine.

I've got a question on such air layers. Does pinching help promote root formation and growth on a fast growing branch. I have many such branches that I'll be airlaying in the weeks ahead and was wondering if someone had noticed any differences in rooting by pinching them back.
"gene"

Hello again Gene from the Bayous,

Hmm, interesting question. Conventional wisdom says that if you pinch a growing tip, you will certainly encourage lateral shoots and fruit production. I've never done that to an air layer, but using the same analogy, I would guess that it would have a similar effect on root development. At the very least, you can be pretty confident that you will not be doing any harm to your air layer, so it's worth a try.

But bear in mind that if you pinch, you will be restricting height growth as well, which is also fine if that's what you want anyway. I use the general rule that if my fruit is too high to pick without a ladder or chair, then it's time to air-layer. So I actually use air-layering as my preferred method for controlling height growth as well as bushing out, otherwise my fig tree will simply take over my garden.

So bottom line? It wouldn't hurt to try it on a couple of your layers as an experiment. Then compare the result with a layer that hasn't been pinched, and draw your own conclusions. Then you could let us know if you noticed any difference.

All the best,

ok guys, I've fixed the rogue formatting, so hopefully the above guide is now easier to read, especially for any new visitors to this thread.

Pete - I assume you're ok with the standard method for creating the 'wound'?

Greetings from (sunny) London

costas,

i'm not sure if i'm going to create wound on my air layering. last few days have been rather humid and hot. what i have noticed from the hardwood on my trees is that they are forming what looks like root initials. if that's what they are, i'm just going to wrap them with soil and hope for the best.

from what i have been reading so far, wound can be created in few ways. the standard way i have seen is completely removing bark about the branch down to white part. others i have read, just indicates cutting or scraping the bark to the green layer.

i'll wait till one evening when i'm nicely toasted with a pint of guinness or some other brew and start working on them. :)

pete

Trying an air layer without the 'wound' can also work, but if that's your preferred method, I would still throw in some rooting compound for good measure.

Otherwise, paring down to the white tissue is the default method I use with 100% success rate.

Guiness? Wow! Are you English (or even Irish) by any chance? I didn't think Americans were into stout.

So here's a question for Gene: Have you ever tried propagating your loquat? I tried air-layering 4-5 times. Complete flop. Just grows back new bark - absolutely no roots. If you know a better method, please spill the beans.

Y'all take care now, y'hear?

loquat1,

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for the tips on air layering.
Agree with you on the better success rate with making wound/taking the bark off. I have 100% success rate in air-layering where I had peeled off the bark. I also do the same with large cuttings upon propagating.

Navid


P.S. I like Guiness too. Had a coach few years back that used to tell us how great it is to drink it after the training. So, I'll end up trying it and eventually liked it so much that it's the only type of the beer I drink now.

costas,

beer, beer, beer. glorious beer. nope, not an englishman, not an irish, nor am i a scottish, tho i do play great highland bagpipes (well.. not in last 10 yrs. hard to play pipes when i have two young boys running around).

just love beer. all type, all sorts. prefer british ale over german lagers. but on a pinch, i'll drink almost anything.

my favorite is irish cream ale, but it's almost impossible to find it. boddington is ok, but it's not as creamy. caffrey's irish cream ale.. i still dream about it. i can't find it any more.

pete

Costas,
I have not tried to air layer any loquats, but rather have sprouted many from seed. I received some seed of the variety "Big Jim" last year and was told by the friend who sent them to get them to maximum size to graft them to another tree.

Last year I got some seeds from Europe that were suppose to form very large fruit but the seeds were dry and didn't sprout. My experience with seeds is to plant them fresh from the fruit.

Speaking of loquats, one of my trees has flowered again. A first for me to have it flower twice in a season.
"gene"

Navid -  Thx for the welcome, and you're welcome re. the tips. Glad to be of help, & glad you agree that the 'wound' method is probably a safer bet.

As for the beer, make mine a cider. Failing that, I'll have a Stella. No? Better make it a John Smith then. Oh well, here's to your health anyway. Cheers mate.

Pete - So you're a Martian then? If I ever cross the pond, I'll bring some with me, just for you. Nanu Nanu.

Gene - Agreed, growing from seed is the only method I've used with success to date. Only problem with that is that according to some authorities, you only get a 5% success rate with plants grown from seed as far as fruit production goes, which put me off somewhat initially. So imagine my surprise when all my trees started to fruit on reaching maturity (ie after about 7 yrs).

My other problem is that my main loquat tree went 'native' on me 3 seasons ago, ie it inexplicably started to flower in Fall (which is what it does in it's native lands - SE China and Japan) instead of Spring. The blossom does not survive temperatures below 0 deg C, so of course our Winters kill any prospect of fruit in the following Spring.

As a last resort, I tried radical pruning last year (I removed about 1/3 of the canopy), and amazingly, that stopped it flowering last Fall. I had real hopes of seeing fruit this year, but again, no sign of any blossom, so not quite sure what's going on at the moment. So I'm gonna try more radical pruning at the end of this Summer to forestall flowering nxt Fall as well, & see what happens in the following growing season. If still no fruit, I might just keep it anyway as an ornamental. It is such an attractive tree.

Toodle pip, & tickety boo from the UK.

costas - just in case you still wonder - looks like sunny london is zone 8

Thx Eli. Karla did mention near the start of this thread that I'm in zone 8b/9a, so I assume your 8 is a small promotion to a sunnier clime, and doesn't put me in the same zone as Alaska!

As a point of reference, tho, it would be useful to know which of your States are keeping me company, if you know.

Ciao,

Hi again guys (and gals),

I've updated the air-layering guide to include a major section on 'post-natal' care (points 16 - 24) for the benefit of complete tyros, so if you're not quite sure how to treat your new 'baby', by all means re-visit.

All the best,

Navid said @ #18 above: