Crabapple craving

nedz

For one reason or another I have been really wanting a crabapple to train into a bonsai.

However it soon beacame rather clear that crabapple stock is somewhat hard to find and if you do find it, they are expensive. I have seen good pre bonsai selling for $300!!

Therefore, while buying fence material for my backyard, I wandered into the garden department and found a 6 foot crabapple tree for $25 that had a small sucker coming out about 8" up the otherwise straight branchless trunk.

I planted the tree in the ground and chopped it back to the small sucker.

I know it is not a great time to be doing this here in Michigan. But with spring still new and the tree's roots being larger than the now small trunk, I gave it a shot.

Any comments on if the tree will survive and push the sucker into a trainable branch?

Would I have been better off to plant the tree and try ait layering? Would air layering now with the tree just planted be okay? If so, would it be when would I have removed the air layered branch to a pot ( 2-5 gallon pot), later this fall or next spring? Can air layers survive the winter?

As you can see, air layer is scarry for a newbie.

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BunjinEnt

It should be ok as long as you sealed the wound. I MIGHT even clip the sucker. A photo would help that determination. You could have chopped the remainder of the branches into small segments about 6" long, dip in root hormones and stick in plant starting soil. They readily shoot roots from hardwood. HOWEVER, I have never done this after flowering and leaf pop. I usually do it in early spring. Anyone else have experience in prop from cuttings this late in season? Wait, yer in Michigan. Try some hardwood cuttings. If it works you have more crabapples than you know what to do with. If it doesn't work, oh well, no loss.

-Wm

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holycow

did you check to see if the crab was on grafted stock?

nedz

I'm not sure how to tell if it is on grafted stock. I think it probably is. The trunk right above the soil line is quite a bit bigger than the rest. Does this matter? Not being sarcastic, I truly do not know.

I also bought a flowering Cherry that I will try the clipping and dipping in dip and grow.

Maybe I will try to air layer the cherry for practice. It still seems overwhelming to me. Maybe the best cure for that is to just do it!!!

holycow

if tis grafted stock, and you cut below it, you lose the crabapple, and the bottom stock grows out.

look at the trunk few inches above the ground, if you notice a swelling/scarring, then it's been grafted.

Dav4

I'm not sure about Michigan, but here in southern New England, crab apples are almost weedlike in their wild distribution. I see them growing everywhere, particularly in fallow fields and along the side of roads...and they're blooming now. Take a look around you...you may find some stock growing wild that you might be able to collect.


Dave

Craig Cowing

And, they are vulnerable to every disease and pest in the book.

Craig Cowing

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