Quince Aromatnaya in Bloom. 5.9.2019

 These look a lot like dogwoods, except five petals instead of four.  Of the grafted types, only Aromatnaya is thriving.  I should take a good look at the others and decide if they should be removed.

Grafting Followup. 3.28.19

Quince Graft.  3.28.19

It's still chilly.  In fact, there was a slight freeze, ice on fence although thermometer registered 34F.  Regardless, this growth on the Quince graft is promising.  Even prunings can grow a little, sometimes, so it does not prove the graft took.  But at least, it's alive.

Grafting. 3.12.19

This is the first step of wrapping the graft with plastic strip.  Knot tied.

The strip is flattened, wrapped tightly up, then down, and tied again.

Finally, the scion is wrapped to avoid dehydration.  I used parafilm this time.

Today I grafted new scions onto a number of pre-existing apple trees.  I'm comfortable with whip and tongue grafting, so that's what I do.  These trees are young but starting to have some size.  They are dwarf or semidwarf size trees.    For one, a large, mature  branch of Pristine broke due to graft failure, so I'm not grafting Pristine back onto that tree.  There is a small "water sprout" branch near that location, so I grafted a new variety to that branch as a replacement ("Bob's red flesh, a small apple with red flesh throughout).

I thought I would show my current method.  It's much easier than the older methods that involved grafting wax and string, or sticky tape.  I use strips, about 3/4 inch wide, cut from gallon-size "Ziplock" plastic freezer bags.  After experimenting with stretching, I can get a good firm tight binding, without breaking the strips.

The cutting and fitting of the scion and understock is as usual.  I didn't do as fine a job as last year, but apple is fairly forgiving, so I think they should take.  Once the whip and tongue graft scion and understock are fitted together, I tie a strip of plastic strip below the graft, with one end being short and the other long.

Then I flatten the strip, and wrap up, then down the graft.  I pull the plastic strip as firm as I can, without stretching to the yield point where it loses it's stretch and tears.

Then I tie the end of the strip back to the original knot.

I wrap the scion with either a thinner plastic strip, or this time, parafilm.  The goal there is to prevent dehydration but allow the buds to grow

This method gave 100% take last year.  I'm hoping for a good result this year too.

I grafted -

That "Bill's Red Flesh".

A local crab apple variety from an HOS member, "Hi Jack".

Pristine.

I also bought some Bud-9 rootstock at the HOS show, and grafted Northpole apple onto that rootstock.  I want to see if I can better limit the height, and make a much more compact columnar apple tree than I have with the original Northpole.


And quince varieties, to the quince tree that I'm reworking, adding Limon and Crimea Quince cultivars.

Also, onto a plum branch, I added one branch from an ornamental, fastigiate red plum (Scarlet Sentry?) from elsewhere in the yard, for pollination purposes.  That goes both ways - I'm curious to see if those plums are larger or better set, when pollinated by more proximal plum varieties.

Grafting Day. 3.20.17

Image via USDA Image Collection.

Thanks to the Scion Exchange and my fellow fruit growing enthusiasts at the Home Orchard Society, some nice guys, I came home with several varieties that I wanted to graft as soon as I could.

Today was drizzling all day, not too bad for some grafting work, so I spent the afternoon in the home orchard grafting. In general, I leave about 3 inches per scion, and try to make sure it has 3 buds, and the diameter matches the understock. I have not learned bark grafting and cleft grafting for large understock, which just seems to expose the tree to too much potential disease due to the large wound, but it does work for others. So, I look for low branches about the same size of the scion, and use those. For young trees that are still a small size, that seems to work very well for me.

 What I grafted, today and yesterday:

1.  To the injured, new, 4-way Euro plum, I added Yakima plum to a branch that appears to be off the understock, and Yellow Egg plum to replace the Italian plum branch. .

Yellow Egg Plum.  Via USDA Image Collection.

2.  To my Stanley plum tree, I added Jefferson Plum.  I have been unable to find info about that variety.
3.  To the old green plum that came with the Battleground place, which might be a green gage plum, I added Yellow Egg and Yakima.  I usually cut the scions into pieces with 2 buds, so one scion usually gives me a couple of grafts.
4.  To the Rebecca's Gold pawpaw, I added grafts of Wilson pawpaw.  Those were so delicate, and they have flower buds, and I'm not sure they have leaf buds, so who knows if they will take,
5.  To the Illinois Everbearing mulberry, I added Noir de Spain mulberry, 2 grafts.  The internode spaces were very long, so I made those as 1-bud grafts each.  There is a bit if scion remaining, so might add more.
6.  To one multigraft apple, I added Fameuse apple.
7.  To other multigraft apples, I added Dolgo crabapple, Firecracker red flesh apple, and to Jonared, I added Jonathan, which I am curious to see if the redder sport is a sacrifice in flavor compared to the original.
8.  Yesterday I also grafted scion from Fedco, Sweet-16 apple, King David Apple, and Opalescent.  The first 2, I already grafted, but they had so little growth that I want to try again.

Fameuse Apple.  Image via USDA Image Collection.

9.  To an Asian pear tree, I added Chojuro.
10.  To Aromatnaya quince, I added Crimea quince. 
11.  I added spare pieces of scion to the hawthorn thicket, Crimea quince and Chojuro Asian pear.
12.  I also planted cuttings from Limon quince and Aromatnaya quince to see if they grow from Spring planted hardwood cuttings.

That's it for playing in the orchard, grafting.  I did not cut myself - always a good thing.  I know I don't "need" any more fruit varieties, but no harm in grafting on new varieties to see how they do and maybe get a taste in a  couple of years.  They may also help with pollination.  I got to try my hand at grafting some species that I have not tried before - mulberry, pawpaw, quince.  If any - or all -  do poorly or are not good, I can always prune the bad ones off, without losing a tree.  Ditto if one is way to vigorous and takes over a tree.

I'm using images from the USDA image collection.  They are public domain.  I don't know if the USDA will have funding cut and drop the collection, so it's nice to peruse them while there is a chance.

Quince Fruit

Fruit of Ornamental Quince

While pulling weeds around the shrubs, I discovered these on a quince bush. I assume this is a Chaenomeles hybrid   The quince was planted late winter, so is only about 18 inches tall.  Not sure what, if anything, I'll do with these.  I read they are astringent and bitter.

Flowering Quince

It's in the most neglected spot in the yard, a tall fence on the North side, my neigbor's house on the West, and our house on the East. I'm guessing 45 years old. Blooms every year. Get's a little pruning, that's all. Every Spring, one of the most beautiful shrubs around.

Quince with Chickadee

Picture is today - The chickadees like to hang out in this quince bush, and individually head to the feeder for their seeds. They take turns politely.