Air layering Pinus parviflora

I have a well shaped JWP that has about a 2 1/2 in trunk but it is grafted on Japanese black pine.

It's been growing in the ground for 4 years. I'd like to layer it just above the JBP it is grafted on.

The graft is about an inch from the ground so I thought next Spring I could air layer it while it's in the ground.
Just put the pot at the base, make my cuts, wrap in Sphagnum and fill the pot at the base for the new roots
to grow in.

I know JWP are hard to air layer but I'm wondering if anyone has had success air layering JWP in this way.

I forgot to mention, I live in Wisconsin and it can get pretty cold here. My thinking is that if I insulate the pot
I am air layering into and get the snow around it it may work.

TIA

I have read that pines are often better off being layered via the tourniquet method with a tight wire and then buried in the ground at that point. The layer itself can often take several years to produce roots thats why the standard ring bark method isn't usually done for Pines. But I'm no Pine expert.
-Jay

Hi Gary,
Look at the tread here in bonsai on wed. mar. 3 2011
Japanese White Pine.
Sunip

Sunip,

Do you have a link to that thread? I'm having a hard time finding it.

Hi Gary,
I do no know how to link, but if you go to the bonsai page
you can search for page 28 and then choose the thread on mar-10-2011- Japanese White Pine
that must do the trick.
Sunip

Last week, Ryan Neil was a guest of our club in Atlanta and was asked a similar question by a club member. Ryan answered the question by describing a visit he had to a Japanese nursery that specialized in pine bonsai. While there, he noted that there were several pines (I'm pretty sure they were JBP) in the process of being air layered, which interested him. Upon asking the nursery owner about the trees in question, he was told that the layers had been started FIVE years earlier and would hopefully be ready to separate in another TWO years. Keep in mind the facts that Japan has a much warmer climate with a very long growing season, the people carrying out the air layering were experienced professionals that make their living creating and selling these trees, and it was still requiring at least seven years to be successful.

I know they are hard to root, and air layer.

At 62 I think I'll use it in the landscape instead.

I have Pinus parviflora "brevifolia glauca" and 2 Pinus parviflora "nana" from Monrovia nursery. I like to use them in my yard.

I still have some JWP seedlings left. Maybe I'll make a grove and see how long it lives.

I have seen many JWP on their own roots over the years that were beautiful.