Well, it's been a while since I tried an air layer, so I thought I'd practice on this Olive that was a little too straight and lacking taper. The olive happens to live inside right now because it's still too cold out. I am basically breaking this long straight section, on the right branch, in half.
Below you can see the two cuts girdling the branch. It is a bit longer than the circumference.
Below you can see that I have begun cutting away the bark. I was careful to keep the edges cut clean as I worked.
I made sure that the cambium layer was cut and scraped away.
Instead of holding the soaked moss on and trying to wrap it with my hand in the way, and the frustration of some moss chunks moving or falling away, I tried a new strategy. I laid out the plastic wrap and put the moss on and then essentially palmed it and wrapped it around. I left some extra slack space on each side so it would bind together easier. This held it together enough for me to get another piece of plastic wrap to wrap around the whole thing one more time and make it tighter.
I find electrical tape to work the best because it can get a tight seal, stretches, and is easy to remove.
Here it is - all done for now.
Now I was ready to climb up on my car and tackle the hawthorne tree in the front yard.
The bark was challenging to cut easily with the knife so I used a pruning saw and then the knife to clean up the edges. I chose this branch because it has this really nice movement. The picture doesn't quite show it, but it has a little twist. The branch to the left of this actually did a second air layer but it would be just outside this picture.
Below are the two air layers that the same strategy as I used on the olive inside. For these I added part of a gray grocery bag just to try to keep some of the light off the hopefully soon-to-be forming roots.
