Maria,
Thank you very much for posting your results and pictures. It is inspiring.
My grafting opportunities this year have been spotty. When there were stretches of good weather, trips and/ or family obligations got in a way 
When I have free time, it has been either too cold or rainy. I have nects, peaches and apricots left to graft. It will be very wet for the next few days with a frost warning tonight.
Mamuang,
It is very exciting to see when the grafts are waking up. My neighbors think that I am crazy, because I like to walk around the trees and stare at the grafts every day. 
The next exciting thing is to try the fruits from this grafts. I guess we sent all the cold and the rain your way, because this is what we had the last 5 days. Good luck with the grafting.
I went today to look at the apple tree I topworked. All over the ground at the trunk, it was like someone had thrown around a box of chewed-up matches. I found one recognizable scion among the mess, with a green bud where it wasn’t gnawed on.
The tongue depressors I’d used to protect the scions, parafilm fragments, scraps of grafting compound - all scattered over the ground.
All done this afternoon. A squirrel?
Antmary, I agree with it being good to graft early if the plants are showing signs of life, but with peaches you are not going to have much luck if the temps are consistently cold. Looking up the Omaha weather you had 10 or so days in March where the high was 70F or higher, I expect you had enough warm spells for your grafts to take. It doesn’t have to be warm right around the day you do the graft, but if the high was in the 50’s for all the next week I don’t think you will have any luck. With peaches that is, and perhaps apricots.
I love walking around and looking at the new grafts. Pretty sure some of my neighbors wonder what is so interesting about those trees that make me stare at them every day.
I may have mentioned this one before, but a few years ago I had a jujube graft which had obviously failed after a month. But I didn’t have any more wood of that variety, so I cut off another inch of the branch, and moved the same scion down a bit on the branch (on June 22nd). The scion actually leafed out on August 1st.
So jujube are tough. Too bad they are tough to cut too. I get good results with them, but I think apples and pears do better. I think I get about the same between plums and jujubes (good but not close to perfect).
Oh my Lois, that is awful. What on earth would an animal want with sticks and tongue depressors?
I really do wonder what they think. I wonder if they think, “Sometime when she’s gone I’m gonna go over there and see what is up”, LOL.
Is it just pleasant to see nature unfold.
I think I may have had one day of temp around 69/70, this past month. We had a 2-3 day stretch of 60 but I was not around. I grafted apples, pears, plums, pluots and cherries with good success.
Need to wait for a stretch of high 60-low 70 before I attempt peaches, nects and apricots.
Unless it’s a tree-climbing beaver, I have no idea
Or a graft-hating woodpecker?
Maria,
I walk around my orchard and staring at my trees, too. Not only my neighbor thinks I am crazy, his dog must think that, too. At the beginning of spring, it used to bark at me when I was in my yard. These days it just look at me wondering why I am in my orchard staring at my trees so much.
Same here. I use Surround for curc, codling moth, and deer (when mixed with sulfur). Not only that, but you have to put it on all the time since it comes off in the rain. So I wonder if folks think that I’m completely crazy coating my trees in white powder sometimes more than once in a week?
The only luck I had with peaches is in cold weather, it was nice today and I also stare at the grafts. All looking great despite the terrible weather, most days, even peaches. Back to rain the next couple days, we are already 3 inches over norm. At the lake water levels are up, have been for some time now, 5 years or more.
When I lived outside the city of Palmdale in the Mojave Desert, ground squirrels would destroy my mulberry trees in a similar manner. The base of the trees were littered with the 6 to 12" tips of all the branches. I had to start trapping and adopted a couple of rescue pitbulls.
Do you have ground squirrels in your area? I suppose some tree squirrels may do the same thing.
Don’t like to hear that. Did some grafting two days ago and now the 7 day forecast is for highs of 56 to 64.
Maria,
Did you make a note what the temp was like when you grafted peaches/nectarines this year? If you had a stretch of 70 F like @scottfsmith mentioned, then, it did make sense that your peach grafts took well.
My last year’s peach/nect grafts took 100% the first round when I have a stretch of high 60 and low 70 for about 3-4 days. That’s around May 8-10. This year, so far, no such luck. No temp has been near that. The next 5-6 days will be in the 50 and low 60 with rain.
@mamuang
Then for comparison it would be very interesting to hear about your grafting success this year, when you are sure about the results of course.
I didn’t had much of a choice cause I got scions early that already started to break dormancy. So I grafted them right away though forecast showed some nights with frost. Not sure about the results yet. Out of 5 for 2 is still hope, while 3 did fail obviously
I have to say that despite of the our cold winters, it looks like the spring comes earlier for us comparing to the East coast. However I think the general idea of grafting earlier when you see swollen buds is applicable to any climate. Here are the references to our weather for the March and April from AccuWeather.
In March we had wild swings from 78 to 17. Apricots were grafted on March 4-5th, when they showed flowebuds and look what kind of weather they had after that.
Peaches were grafted on March 24th and we had colder weather in 50s and 40s for a week after grafting. In April we reached 70s only in the middle of the month. I grafted my second bunch of apricots in the middle of April. I was thinking that in 70s they will pop out very fast and they still do not show anything. I am going to cut the small slits in paradigm to see if it helps.
I grafted a month ago and temps were at best 60, Almost all took, i would not worry about it. I’m always grafting at flowering from now on, no matter what the temp. If my trees can set fruit, they can assimilate a graft, even peaches. All I can go by is what I see and they are working for me. I’ve given up on expert advice. it cost me 2 years of time. Night temps here are in the 40’s and have been for some time now, and almost every graft took. True, a couple peaches didn’t take, all plums took, every single graft, which is a great thing as I was running out of room, and I made only one graft of a couple pluots. They all took.
Thanks! I just watered them.