AusBonsai

I bought this European Beech today from work






I had planned to cut here





Leaving this





I had thought to take cuttings from the unwanted branches, but am I too late for this? Normally cutting are taken during Winter, and as you can see from the photos, there are buds on the branches, so I'd rather wait till next season if I'm too late to take cuttings. I don't want to waste all of those potential trees.

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If not too late, give an air layer a go. I took one and it rooted only a few months.

Daluke wrote:If not too late, give an air layer a go. I took one and it rooted only a few months.

I guess that brings us to the next question: which would be better to do, trunk chop and take cutting or air layer? And when is the best time to air layer?

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Do both.

Now is the right time.

I would advise waiting until well into leaf until attempting an air layer. I recall being early and a bit keen one year and found it hard to break the cambium layer. My suspicion is that the lack of action in the tree at the time caused this.. I'll be trying another one shortly and will definitely wait until leaves have hardened off.

Boics wrote:I would advise waiting until well into leaf until attempting an air layer. I recall being early and a bit keen one year and found it hard to break the cambium layer. My suspicion is that the lack of action in the tree at the time caused this.. I'll be trying another one shortly and will definitely wait until leaves have hardened off.

I might wait till mid November if I'm going to air layer it. If I then leave it to next Spring, the upper trunk should have struck roots by then, ready to cut off and pot.

Should I do anything with the roots in the mean time, trim them back perhaps?

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