Kitchen Garden Forum

Seeing an apple tree on the box with dozens of different apple's grafted on it , thought |I might have a more modest go at grafting, What would be the best time of the year to graft.

Hello Shallot Man,
I seem to think a former work colleague of mine locally collects up his material for Apple grafting about February time.

Always fancied a go at it myself but haven't quite got there.........

Clive.

Many thanks Clive.

Hello shallotman, an interesting project. Were you thinking of grafting onto separate rootstocks or several onto one? I have a triple apple and one graft is more vigourous than the other two, so it might pay to take note of the vigour of each apple and pick similar? I was advised to prune back the stronger one and it has grown back even more vigorously !

Nature's Babe Have "COBRA and FIESTA both apple, thinking of a swop graft.

NB you should prune the weaker and leave the stronger alone as pruning stimulates growth.

Thank you Peter, I figiured that too, will do that, I have left the strong one and was planning a light - med pruning the weaker two this winter,or should I hard prune? There is blossom on my russet apple at the moment, so was waiting till they are dormant.

Shallotman that sounds like a wonderful idea, I have a single russet apple, and the triple is cox, red devil, and if I remember correctly the third is worcester, It's the cox that is so vigorous. I also have 2 morello cherries and 2 sweet cherries. My last gardens were smaller, so I am still learning with fruit. The morello cherries were only planted last year and we had enough for 2 nice cherry pies.
would love to swap and if you could explain grafting and best way to save what you need.that would be great.

I once fancied a go at apple grafting, but where on earth can you buy rootstocks ? I could not find anyone who listed them.

Tony perhaps it would be possible to take a sucker, that grows off the root,
some do form below the join sometimes. Other than that I tried googling for suppliers of rootstock and this was the first of a few suppliers -

http://www.blackmoor.co.uk/index.php?cPath=320

Thank you NB for a couple of good suggestions. I have a few apple trees at the moment, but my choices of variety, form and location were not all wise ... I may try some reorganisation.

I had a look at Espalier trained trees in spring and was put off by the high cost, then I popped into our local nursery and saw a tree - the last one in the variety I wanted... hmnnn! I think even I could train that one.. An A frame with a few bars accross and hey presto a year later very inexpensive espalier tree. A young one year old maiden is pretty flexible too so my project this year is a step over apple tree !