Cleft Grafting Apple Espalier Trees. 29 Mar 24.

 These are two of the Redlove that I trained as Espaliers.  They have healthy, mature root systems and trunks.  So far in my garden, the apples have deep red flesh as promoted, but are hard, lemon-sour, and inedible.

My space is limited, and I'm not getting any younger.  I decided to replace the Redlove tiers with proven varieties that I love, Jonagold and Akane.

Since these are going onto low tiers, I think they need to be vigorous varieties, which is true for both selections.  With mature rootstocks and vigorous varieties, maybe I'll see fruit in three years.

I'm serious about safety.  I think whip-and-tongue makes a sturdy, beautiful graft.  When well done, there is little or no wood exposure to the elements.  It's always been my go- to method.  My success rate approaches 100%.  But.  There is a lot of cutting and maneuvering, and the cut can give way to injury easily.

So this time, I chose cleft grafting.  All of the scion work can be (was) done on a cutting board, with blade facing down (wearing mandolin gloves).

The tree work can be done with blade facing away from the worker and his hands.  In addition, it's only one cut, and it faces the tree.

Assembling the graft is not quite so elegant.  Apples take grafts easily, and cleft grafting has been used for eons, so I think they will take.

By the way, here is the whip-and-tongue graft, same tree and variety, that I gave a blood sacrifice last year.

Fully healed.  I had never unwrapped it, so the growth was restricted.  Now it is free to grow.  It did heal fine.  In another  year or two, growth will make the graft invisible.

The tree now.  I  cut about 90% of the spur and new growth from the branches. I will let a few apples form, but I want most nutrients to go to those grafts to push growth.  The top tier is Blue Pearmain, which I'm keeping.

The completed work.  The new grafts are circled in yellow.  For the challenged gardener, all of the grafting and a lot of the pruning were done sitting on the gardening bench.  The espalier can be as short as convenient for accessible gardening.