Fall grafting in the southeast

One of my main problems with gardening is my complete lack of patience. It’s not helped by the tantalizingly long growing season here in the Carolinas, and I always feel like I can get away with doing just one more thing now that others might pit off until next year. I would really like to fill in the missing layers in my espaliar fence row, and notching didn’t produce results for some of the bigger trees which need a lower branch.

Our forecast is high 80s, lows in upper 70s, and I was debating either trying to chip bud from the same trees onto the trunks, or adding random extra varieties via chip budding. Is it too warm for success?

My more conservative option is to wait until spring and putting a whole scion stick on via some kind of side bark graft, which I have never tried.

If it matters, I had 0% success with tbudding this year, my first attempt, but had great luck with apple cleft grafts.

You can probably graft as-is but get less takes…if you do, you wont have gotten anything extra for rushing but some extra scars on your trees. That said, you can always try, especially if you do it “far enough out” on branches that you can always cut further back for spring grafting if you need to.

Personally i would wait but i understand the impatience.