Hello. Welcome to Ma-ke Bonsai.
This is Mark D' Cruz.
In this episode, we'll be removing an air layer
that we did last year from this ficus elastica.
And you can see it has quite a lot of roots on it.
It has air layered very well
and it's time now to remove it from the mother plant.
Bogdan is using a saw to cut right through it
and you can see it's been detached nicely.
The cut is nice and deep and fine
and we pot it on into this lovely ceramic bonsai pot.
We will use a 9 mm well drained soil mix.
It has a little bit of vegetative matter in it
but it needs to be well-drained because the ficus,
while it likes a lot of water,
it doesn't like to have its roots waterlogged.
So I will just tie it up in the bonsai pot and fasten it down
so that while the new roots are settling into the soil,
the plant doesn't move at all.
The excess bits of wood and stubble that are there
are removed so as not to collect fungus and pests.
Some of the lower leaves are also removed.
These are old leaves from last year.
By removing these leaves,
it'll also encourage back padding.
So, remove any dead leaves and any dead stubs.
Cover with sphagnum moss
because sphagnum moss will help retain the moisture
in the top layer of the soil and in the bonsai pot.
This means that the roots will be encouraged
into the high layers of the pot
and every inch of the pot is available for growing roots.
Bogdan is going to add some green moss
which he's creating to be reduced to a fine.
What we're after is the spores in the green moss.
You can see that the moss has been nicely grated.
He will then sprinkle the green moss onto the pot.
He spreads a thin layer of green moss
onto the sphagnum moss.
The idea of putting the green moss and the sphagnum moss
is that if you try to apply it directly to the soil,
the soil keeps moving and the moss doesn't settle properly.
But this way, the sphagnum moss doesn't move
and when you tamp it down,
the seeds of the spores get embedded
into the sphagnum moss.
And even when you water,
they tend not to be washed away.
So, within a few months,
actually depending on the time of the year,
you will get quite green moss.
This is the air layer cut off. It's looking nice.
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This is Mark D'Cruz from Make Bonsai signing out.