Can Air Layering Be Used To Reduce The Size Of A Bonsai?

When it comes to reducing the size of a bonsai, air layering is probably not the first technique that will spring to your mind, but it can be used in a way to make this happen.

It really depends on what you are trying to achieve and at times air layering can play a role in this.

I will go through a couple of situations to help you understand when it may work, or not.    

You Can Remove The Top Of A Bonsai With An Air Layer

If you have a particularly large bonsai and you would like to reduce the size, then using an air layer to do this can be an option.

You could remove the top section and then be left with the original tree now being smaller, and of course the new tree you have produced, which will also be smaller, so you could turn one big bonsai, into two smaller one. 

You could also do this on a small bonsai, but really the top section you are going to remove is going to be very small, so it may not be worth it.

You could really make an air layer at whatever point you like on your existing bonsai, there really are no rules. If you want to remove a section, you can.

Why Not Just Prune The Top Off?

In this example, where you have a large bonsai that you want to reduce in size …I would first ask is the top of the tree worth keeping.  Is it worth doing an air layer?

It may actually be easier to just reduce the size of your bonsai by pruning some of the top off and bringing the height of the tree down.

This is really going to depend on what you want to remove and evaluating if it is worth keeping. If the top of the tree would make a decent little tree on its own, then air layering makes more sense.

You may also just want another tree and may not be worried about what it looks like, where again, air layering would make sense.

However, if you just have some ugly, tall branches and they are just not really good for anything …don’t be scared to just remove them and reduce your tree that way.  

(You an read more about – What Is The Best Way To Prune A Bonsai Tree That Has Grown Too Tall?)

You Can Reduce The Trunk Length With Air Layering

Sometimes you may have a bonsai that is too tall. It may be long and leggy and just have a long boring trunk before anything interesting happens. 

In this instance you could start your air layer further up the trunk, so that there will be a shorter distance between the where the roots start and where the first branches are.

This would compact your tree and reduce its size, but more importantly it would get rid of your long boring trunk.

This would sort of be reducing the size of the tree by getting rid of the bottom. Of course you could not do this through normal pruning methods, which is where an air layer would be perfect.

The cool thing about doing this is that the section of trunk below your air layer will probably turn into a new tree. You have the original roots and the start of the trunk … so basically you are left with a tree that has had a trunk chop done on it …it is just that you have managed to keep the top half as a new bonsai rather, rather than throw it away.

The trunk you have left behind should produce some new branches, so hopefully you can work on this and end up with something cool and allowing you to have two bonsai.       

You Can Remove The Roots With Air Layering

Removing the roots is kind of like what I just mentioned above, it is going to reduce the size of the tree, but your main focus is really to remove the roots.

This would be perfect for a tree that has really bad roots and maybe multiple root planes. If you look at my Chinese Elm it fits this well, it has a cool trunk, but this splits into two ugly roots and just looks dreadful.

The only way to correct this is through an air layer, where I will try and force and new root plane to grow just above where the original roots split.

My goal is of course to get a new, better root spread …but in the process I have made the tree smaller. This isn’t really what I wanted, but it’s not the end of the world. My trunk was already quite short and having to create an air layer on this will make it shorter.

You Can Remove The Top Of Another Tree, To Make A Smaller Bonsai

Probably a more common approach is to remove the top of a larger tree …to create a small bonsai.

This is going to make more sense with your garden trees that are growing in the ground. There may be one decent size branch that has everything you would want in a bonsai and you might even say “if I just cut that off, it would make a great bonsai” …so cut it off. Start an air layer and when it roots you can remove it and have the tree you want.

Now you will have a small bonsai, by removing a section from a larger tree. This isn’t really reducing the size of a bonsai, its more reducing a large tree to create a bonsai, but I guess it is still a way to use air layering to create a smaller tree.    

Air Layering Is Just Propagating

I think it is important to remember that air layering is just a form of propagating; you can use it to create new trees. I think it is better to see it as this, rather than a way to reduce the size of things.

Of course sometimes you will end up reducing the size of things from this technique as I’ve discussed above, but not always. You should also remember that sometimes just pruning a tree is going to be the best way to reduce the size, but really it depends on your tree and what you think is best.

It is always good to know how to use air layering, it can be a great technique for bonsai and at the end of the day you will end up a with a new tree, which is always awesome.