I thought maybe some of us newbies could use a thread where we can report our early experiences with grafting and share tips, etc. When I discover a way of doing something that works better than another way, I’m a little shy to post it as a general topic since there are many people with tons more experience on the larger forum. I’ve also made some embarrassing mistakes that I can warn other first-timers about. Further, I think maybe it’s hard to get the experts to say exactly what works because they know that there are so many variables at work. In fact, I took copious notes on all of my (almost 100) grafts, so that I could then sort out what worked, and what didn’t, and in some cases, it still seems to be magic–or random. Two very similar grafts, one takes and one doesn’t. But in the interests of building a body of knowledge, I hope people will chime in! And of course, it would be great if some of the more experienced folks checked in on us occasionally to keep us on the right track!
Here are a few things I’ve discovered, please add more!
I dutifully put paper bags over my apple, pear, and persimmon grafts–nice little white paper bags left over from a party–to keep intense heat off the grafts. But I discovered that as the grafts leaf out, the paper bags should be removed, because anywhere the leaves grew out to the point where they were touching the bags, they seemed to burn and shrivel up! Nothing too lethal, and I caught it in time, but it seems to be important to remove the bags once the leaves get going.
I started by using parafilm to seal the scion and then stretchy green plastic garden tie stuff to tie the graft firmly. I don’t think the garden tie stuff was strong enough or supported a large enough area of the graft so I switched to electrical tape after five grafts. And when we had very high winds this week, I lost one of the ones on which I used the green tie, so I guess it isn’t supportive enough overall.
We don’t have hot enough weather here for peach grafts to callus, so I bought some reflective insulating material and put it under my peach tree, and about 90% of my grafts have taken–and the ones that had already pushed out a little really took off when they got more heat. I can’t be sure the heat is what did it, but it sure didn’t hurt!
I thought that the bark grafts on thick trunks that I’d cut down low would take the fastest because all of the energy that had formerly gone into a large section of tree would be going into those grafts. Seems not to be true–the whip grafts seem to have taken much faster.
I didn’t think much about which direction the buds on my scions were pointing, and I wish I had. On some branches, I did two bark grafts on a 1" diameter branch, and on some, the buds were pointing inwards, or towards the other scion. They’ve grown out and crashed right into the other, and it’s a waste of growth. I’ve had to cut some of that inward growth out, leaving only the outward facing buds.
I’m sure I’ll think of more, especially as my grafts continue to develop, hope to hear from others.