G is for Grafting

These big pin apple blossoms  produce tiny 1/4" sized apple

You, too can learn Grafting

 Have you dreamed about harvesting big, sweet  apples from that old crab apple tree in the back yard? You know, the one with perfect, beautiful snow-white apple blossoms, but offering only sour, tiny apples  birds won't even bother with?





Maybe the old farmer down the road mentioned you could graft it  ten years ago but you didn't want to look like a  city-slicker, so you didn't ask what he meant--and forgot all about it.  
Does your neighbour have a huge apple tree you admire, especially  when you are given a few crisp, ripe apples from it?   Perhaps  that 40-foot  tree was far too big for your yard anyway. It would also be safer to harvest  if it was only 10 feet high, wouldn't it?
 Maybe you deviously planted a couple of ripe, brown seeds from the wondrous gift  apples, grew a tree, waited ten years with your fingers crossed--but ended  up with a miserable  apple replica seemingly unrelated to the marvelous apples next door.
Why?  Apple trees grown from seed often produce fruit that bears no resemblance to fruit from the parent tree.  Apple trees grown from seed do not always grow 'true to type' and may be totally different.  Grafting is required to guarantee apples with the same characteristics.

That coveted tree may be  a unique heritage variety nobody except real old-timers have even heard of --so the  new, modern  garden center won't have one to sell you either.  |Isn't that frustrating? 
  How about picking  four different kinds of apples from  the same tree? Yes, you can change the  nature of your tree.  Add different varieties  to it, or, with time  and patience , change entirely the apple variety that is produced by your tree.  How?

A successful 5-month old wedge graft

 Such wonders are all achieved with the special process called  grafting.  Cuttings, called scions, which are small twigs or  branches of one variety are grafted on to an older existing tree, a small sprout, a  sapling, or even a basic rootstock of an entirely different variety.

If grafting is done skilfully at the right time of the year, a new tree can be successfully grown. 



 Surprise, --you can even grow a new heritage tree by grafting.
  Grafting cuttings from that heritage tree on to the right root stock can provide the same wonderful heritage apples from smaller trees -- if the scions are successfully grafted to dwarf rootstock.  Dwarf rootstock has been developed specifically to limit the height of any species grafted to them and in some cases, can also result in a  more hardy, disease-resistant tree.
 Can anyone graft? There are difficult  grafting methods, but in it's simplest form,   a clean wedge is carved on the lower end of a scion which is then carefully inserted into a matching appropriate "split" made in a cut-off sapling,  a suitably-located small branch  in the host tree  or suitably located on a healthy piece of root stock. You can also drill a hole in a tree trunk and insert a properly-prepared scion,  or carefully insert a simple 'bud' to install a new branch.

In all cases, regardless of the grafting method used, the cambium,  the 'green' layers under the bark in both scion and host--  must be matched perfectly and fitted  together tightly to ensure success.   The joining area must then be tightly sealed with waterproof tape,  'grafting wax' or other suitable sealant or material.  
Timing is important, but two essential rules must not be overlooked;  the cambium layers MUST be matched to fit tightly, and the  joint MUST  be airtight.
Grafting is usually conducted just  before buds begin to expand and grow, to take advantage of the initial flow of sap and spurt of growth in the spring. The scions themselves may be harvested from other trees when dormant,  in very late autumn or winter, and kept refrigerated until used.

The same graft in bloom

The picture here proves that grafting works. This is the same graft as shown above.  The graft was successful,  and the blossoms show that mature scions were successfully chosen for this graft. You can see the black tape seal where the graft was made. 

Try grafting.  When your first graft actually grows and survives--or better yet, thrives and blossoms, like this one did,  you will be hooked on grafting for life.
You'll be a a grafter for life, and you will be picking those heritage apples you always wanted--from your own tree.







Then, -- how about those   roses, pears, cherries, nectarines, and peaches?  They can all be grafted....

 
Is that incoming I hear?


 The A to Z Blogger Challenge:  http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Life's Little Successes

Life's little Successes

See the black tape?    Every once in a while we should step back and check  the trees in the forest.  I check the ones in the yard too, while I'm at it.   I do  like checking trees; it comes honestly, and  I observe them carefully.   Closer examination is often required to see  mind-shattering, clever details.  When you focus on details, you often find surprises, too,  pleasant ones.   What seems normal is not.   Sometimes, persistence pays.  The strange and unusual can happen.

Let us digress with purpose.  Just for today,  pretend the world is  not in difficulty,  that wars are not in progress, and  that major  economies, even  countries are flirting with bankruptcy.   Let's ignore the weather which is haywire,  wreaking havoc upon the land  with unmitigated flooding, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, forest fires, and drought world-wide. Let's forget that we can't afford to take a wonderful vacation to an exotic land.
While we're at it, let's totally  ignore petty, corrupt politicians,  stuffed-shirts,   the self-entitled, the talking heads on television, and the  at-times sordid lives of  Charlie  What's-his-face  and So-So GaGa  in Hollywood .
Let's focus on life's little successes instead.  Let's talk about growing things.  Why?  Let's explain.   WE think happier is better. 

My friend Glory Lennon is a happy person. She is a wonderful  writer, blogger, and novelist,  but her blog "Glory's Garden" ( http://glory-garden.blogspot.com/ ) seems to be her happy  place. She grows things. She's an expert gardener,  she is knowledgeable.  She knows that day lilies don't have bulbs,  she knows what thistles are, even big ones;  she has two green thumbs,  and best of all, she  is always happy to help others with their gardening and floral  greenery challengerium.
  Glory may well  be the very zeitgeist of gardens, and doesn't charge  wampum for advice  or tips on how to grow stuff in front of your wigwam either.   No matter.  The point is,  I have been enjoying reading her blog for well over a year now,  that's longer than one growing season in gardening talk.  Good thing.  Things sink in slowly.   Let's not lose focus now, remember, patience is good, and persistence pays.
   
Back in 1994  I planted a skinny  McIntosh apple tree. It was a mere whip,  about 15 " high, no branches, and the size of a very skinny brown  pencil.  Despite my advanced gardening skills and encouragement, annual examinations and talking to  it,   in all this time (yep, seventeen years, threats and all )  it never grew more than 5' high, hm....actually it may  not even be  quite that high.

It is still not much more than an inch in diameter.  Stunted.  Height challenged. Anemic looking.  Nary a blossom.   A  potential Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  Sans vitamins or something.   Last year was definitely the last straw, time to cut it down.  Not so fast, gardening guy.   There's only one thing we hate around here  more than  wimps and quitters, and that's apple-tree-chopper-downers.  Apples, the fruit of the Gods and all that. 


The optimism in Glory's Garden  must have rubbed off on me.  "One more year...I'll GRAFT it."  I said, almost changing my mind,  the old fingers just itching to grab the axe.

THIS very spring, a few months ago,  while it was still looking leafless,   I was going to reverse direction again,  hack it down, and even made a cut on the base as I started to do so.    I  changed my mind at the last second.  It must have been the zeitgeist whispering.

Instead,  I studiously grafted a twig  (scion, that's apple talk)  from a producing "Sweet Sixteen" apple onto a  nipped-off handy branch, that would be  any arbitrarily chosen branch close to the trunk.   The theory is if a branch graft  will grow, you can eventually hack off  (in civilized terms, reduce)  the rest of the OLD tree and convert the whole thing to the new species.   Not a bad plan, since   I have had marginal to fair and reasonable to  erratic success grafting.   Out came the grafting knife and black tape.  A simple wedge graft. Match up the cambium ( that's the green stuff under the bark). That's how you do it. Crank it up with tape to seal it so no sap can escape.   Sap  has to go up into the graft  when the buds start growing.  All that sipping-sap makes it grow.
Well, that's the theory.

For the longest time the graft looked like a dud, completely hopeless.  A skinny stick with one end stuck in black tape.  No leaves.  Dried up buds.  Dead, falling off, and threatening to dry up completely.  The bark was even  beginning to wrinkle.  I clipped off  the top end of the graft stick  (scion, remember-- to real apple guys )   and sealed that cut  too.  

Nothing happened for a month, and the rest of the tree came into it's usual wimpy leaves, so in disgust,  I thought the best strategy was to simply ignore the whole tree for the season,  disassociate my hurt feelings and gardening soul from it, take revenge and viciously hack it down in the fall --after the  leaves dropped.
It's easier to do when the tree is 18 years old,  the age of majority for apple trees. Besides, in the fall, most trees look like  dead sticks without leaves  --much easier for sensitive  gardeners to hack down.   The  "chop it down with something , anything *sharp and get a real tree " concept came to mind.   (  THE *axe was indeed looking very tempting  at the time )

Surprise...I could not believe my eyes.  Three months later, a.k.a.  a few days ago, I discovered  the graft was not only growing, but it has  blossoms.  Apple blossoms.   That would be right, since the stick (scion)  I stuck on there wasn't from a spruce or poplar tree.  Success.    I held my breath. Are we there yet? A real dual- apple tree?

  Even  more confusing, the whole  tree began to grow like never before--putting on at least a foot of height.  The leaves are  now dark green, lush --  and healthy.   Why?  Grafting?   It's looking good!   I'll have a dual-species tree --if the original tree ever decides to blossom.

Maybe I half scared it to death with that sharp chopper. Maybe it just wanted extra encouragement, or company,  being an old tree and such.  No, it can't be.
I know.  I think the zeitgeist from  Glory's Garden  took over and  influenced it.  They can do that, you know.  I'll ask her.   She'll know.

that's my story and I'm sticking to it.