My first grafting attempts

I just tried my hand at grafting for the first time and I'm really excited to see how it turns out.

I attended the winter field day at WSU's fruit orchard in Mount Vernon WA where they had talks and hands on demonstrations and lots of rootstocks and scion wood to buy for a couple dollars. It was really fun and I totally recommend anyone in the area checking out the orchard and garden. You can do a virtual tour and check out all the varieties at www.nwfruit.org .

I had one of the experts graft two while I watched, then he helped me graft the third one and the rest I did on my own when I got home. The gentleman offered to help me graft the whole lot of them but I wanted to have time to explore the orchard.

My new babies are:
Methley plum on Krymsk 1
Kuban Comet plum on Marianna 2624
Roxburry Russet apple on Geneva 41
Niedzwedskyana apple on Bud 9
Ananas Reinette apple on Antonovka
Tompkins King apple on Bud 9
Freyberg apple on Geneva 41
Ashmead's Kernal apple on Antonovka

I have them temporarily growing in a loamy irrigated garden bed near my house and will move them out into my orchard area in a year or two after I know they are growing well. I also grafted all the leftover bits of apple scions onto one of my apple seedlings. I figured, why not?

I'd be happy to hear anyone's further advice or your opinions on the fruit varieties I chose.

I'll post pictures when they start growing. Right now they are boring looking sticks. 😂

It's exciting to learn a new skill like that, but I think it really helps to do it with a experienced person first time. I hope they all take for you, but if they don't, the rootstock may still be good for grafting onto another year. I've grafter a few local apples onto crabapple rootstocks with patchy success, but nothing lost!

So far, so good! I can see the scion buds swelling. I haven't killed them yet!

The Niedzwedskyana apple has a very red double blossom. It would make a distinctive tree in a front yard. I'd suggest you graft a scion, in a year or two, to a larger rootstock. Might be more appropriate for an urban location. Or a suburban location like here where there's a large deer population that'll clean up fallen apples.

I let my grafts heal for 3 weeks and don't get disappointed by failures. After the 3 weeks I put them in the ground. My biggest disappointments come when I graft to a planted tree or seedling.. Any wind makes wrapping tape difficult and then the graft union gets abused by the wind before it's healed.

John Indaburgh wrote:The Niedzwedskyana apple has a very red double blossom. It would make a distinctive tree in a front yard. I'd suggest you graft a scion, in a year or two, to a larger rootstock. Might be more appropriate for an urban location. Or a suburban location like here where there's a large deer population that'll clean up fallen apples.

I let my grafts heal for 3 weeks and don't get disappointed by failures. After the 3 weeks I put them in the ground. My biggest disappointments come when I graft to a planted tree or seedling.. Any wind makes wrapping tape difficult and then the graft union gets abused by the wind before it's healed.

Thanks for the suggestions! Oh the double red blossoms sound so pretty! I'm glad I have the time and the space to be able to experiment a little bit.

All but one of my grafted trees has leaves above the graft! I am not giving up on that one slow poke yet because there are buds that seem to be swelling.

Do I leave the leaves on the rootstock for now or rub them off?

More pictures...

The cool thing is my "Frankenstein" tree where I grafted all my leftover bits of apple to a seven year old seedling that hasn't ever flowered. The grafts are pretty wonky all over with me trying to match up the widths and working in the field at weird angles. But every single graft has leaves on it. So even if I don't like the original placement, it gives me future material to work with.