I now this is supposed to be about fruit, but----
I started with growing my own perrenial flowers from seed many years ago (can’t remember the variety), I researched carefully followed all the information in the hopes to do it right. I planted the seed in little pots on the windowsill, and spent time giving them everything they needed lovingly doting on them. One plant of the whole bunch grew and grew very well, I was thrilled and showed off my success to family and friends. My practical husband came home from his trip away, took one look and said " why on earth are you growing stink weed?"
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My biggest mistake so far has been trying to spread a branch in March and splitting out more than 2/3 of the diameter of the central leader on my Kidd’s Orange Red apple tree.
It was so badly damaged I had to cut out the whole leader.
I’m positive I lost my first year of fruit this year, because I grafted some of the scion wood to some rootstock and had blooms on the scions.
Alan points out if that you must keep the branch, at least make a notch with your saw on the bottom of the branch to prevent the split from traveling down the trunk. I’ve used this on a couple smaller branches this summer to make sure the same didn’t happen.
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For those who would rather read the responses in Marknmt’s original thread on this topic than to make the same mistakes themselves, here’s a link to Best and Worst Mistakes.
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Been there, done that!
I have never hit “like” so many times on one thread. These are all just exactly the kinds of stories I needed to hear. And when you have experts like many of you are admitting to so many “mistakes” it really does give novices like me a little hope that we aren’t the only one do screw things up occasionally (ok…frequently). This is a nice humorous diversion from the frustrations that often go with fruit growing!
In the interest of full disclosure, as I stated in the OP, this thread was not an original idea. As Muddy pointed out and I alluded to, @marknmt did one a while back. Apparently we all screw up enough to fill SEVERAL threads with these great stories! ha
Yup.
:-)M
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Shaking chestnuts out of a tree wearing sandals, that was just today!
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Just sandals right? Nothing else? 
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Naked and Afraid, chestnut farm edition 
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Yesterday I went out and removed a rootstock sucker from my potted Gerardi mulberry. I was very excited because this was its second year and it was already 4’ tall and had some fruit set. I briefly considered letting the rootstock sucker grow out a bit because it also had surprisingly decent amount of fruit set but I figured the fruit quality would be terrible and just pruned it off.
I really didn’t want the root stock sucker to come back (I could tell it had also grown last year) so I cut it as flush to the branch collar as I could. That’s when I noticed the missing graft union between the rootstock and the scion. Turns out that I have been growing out the root stock for 2 years and pruning out the Gerardi scion that had been desperately trying to grow back.
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Took me two readings before I caught on! How frustrating for you. I’ve done that kind of thing so often and it just drives me nuts. I hope you can get your Gerardi grafted back to the root stock -any chance of that?
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I have had many:
Grafting peach on a pear (not working)
Grafting apples on pears (no interstem. Working and fruiting)
Grafting plum up side down ( it took)
Recently, rooting fig up side down ( it rooted)
I wish I could claim that I was experimenting. In fact, I just did not pay good enough attention!
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Oh man! Message me in the fall if you need a stick. A generous member passed on a Gerardi tree to me.
I tried branch bending to spread out a pear tree and ended up splitting it down the middle of the trunk. I tied it back together and wrapped the injured area with a ton of parafilm. The tree somehow healed itself before the end of the summer.
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Yeah that’s exactly what I tried as soon as I realized my mistake. The tree was fully leafed out and I probably should have left a nurse branch but oh well, well see how things turn out in a week or so.
What varieties? Did you see any reduction in vigor with the up side down plum?
I can’t remember. It was a Japanese plum grafted to Shiro. It took a couple of weeks longer to grow than other correctly grafted scionwood. I did not keep it long because it grew so slowly.
The apples on pears I kept for 3 years. It fruited and grew vigorously,
Hmm I wonder if otherwise overly vigorous varieties like mulberries can be forced to be dwarfed by grafting them on backwards.
I believe @BobVance tried to graft onto Gerardi to reduce vigor without success.
Bob told me Girardi scionwood can be grafted on a regular mulberry rootstock and will have a dwarfing effect.
Grafted on regular mulberry stock, Gerardi will be dwarf, as that is what I had (I eventually saw a sucker from the rootstock and it had a different type of leaf). But, it won’t dwarf other varieties that are grafted onto it, as they would grow by 6-10 feet per year…At this point, I am in favor of making every mulberry (with special exceptions) into a Gerardi, just due to the maintenance.
Right now, I have 2 non-Gerardi, a Kokuso and an Oscar. Both are in my front yard along the street and and act as a privacy screen. Last year I went up and pruned them all quite harshly. I haven’t done it this spring and probably should. Last year I was able to get away with hand tools, but this year I will probably end up using a chain saw.
I suspect you must have talked about this on here somewhere before, but if so I missed it. So you are saying you grafted apple wood to a pear without winter banana or other interstem and it not only lived but has stayed viable long enough to fruit??? WOW! That is so neat. What varieties?
I don’t know… When I moved into my current house I saw a squirrel through my window. I went out and I swear I have never seen a critter that size move so fast. Later I learned that my neighbor was in the habit of sniping them with a pellet gun.
Those squirrels have learn that going after fruit is not worth dying.