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… without having your credit card information handy:

Lots of apple and pear choices.

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Too late. Already sent my order in. :rofl:

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I ordered a couple scions along with some rootstocks from them over a week ago…
but scionwood at $5 a stick for 6 to 8 inches, you can do better elsewhere unless you have to have zone 4 tolerant varieties.

I swapped for more than a dozen last year, and bought 8 from over in N. Carolina for $3.00 apiece that were the best I’ve come across…about 400 varieties.

(Varieties are from the Nick Botner collection, plus others I think. Pound Sweet, Virginia Beauty, Dula’s Beauty, Black Limbertwig, that’s about 1% of the varieties.

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Happen to have the address handy? That would be nice to have.

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I’ve ordered from Fedco a number of times. I’ve always been happy with the scions. They’ve got some varieties that can’t be found anywhere else.

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I didn’t have it handy, but I’ve got it now!
jason.bowen@ncdcr.gov
(Horne Creek Farm)

An email and Jason will send you a list.
Or I’ll look in my file and get the full address if you want to address an envelope with a stamp.
No web site that I am aware of. I’ve ordered twice and been pleased both times.
He does ship priority mail, so the postage might be as much as the scions if you only wanted a couple.

Actually the price was $3.00 per pencil sized 8 to 12 inch wood, now that I checked my invoice.

{smsmith is correct that Fedco has a few unique ones, though…and I succeeded with all the apples I got from them…but a pear failed and I re-ordered it this year.}

I’ve also learned, for what it’s worth, that the colder the winter where the scionwood was harvested, the longer it takes to break dormancy when I graft it. Wood from South Carolina, Arizona or California has always put out leaves and began to grow in as little as 5 days after grafting in late March or early April for me here in Kentucky.

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A lot of valuable info here, thanks.

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So, Mark, how many varieties of apples are you growing yourself?
I bought some Ida Red and made a pie yesterday…they are pretty apples, but nearly flavorless to eat fresh, and the only flavor in the pie was sugar and dough and a little cinnamon I sprinkled on. I think I’d heard you mention that one…pretty apples, but I won’t be grafting a tree of it.

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Thanks, Mark. Punk.

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I think I have a couple of dozen on my one tree, but they don’t all bear every year, or bear well. I get a lot of Liberty, a decent number of Karmijn de Sonnaville, a few Rubinette, some Jonagold, Prairie Spy, Haralson, Yellow Delicious, Winesap, Pixie Crunch, Cameo, State Fair, and Calville Blanc d’ Hiver. If I poke around enough I can find grafts of a Macoun, some Wealthy, a Hawkeye, several Gold Rush, a Fameuse, Esopus Spitzenberger, Pomme Gris Zabernau Reinette. I was surprised to get several nice Cox’s Orange Pippin and Kidd’s Orange Red fairly soon after grafting. I don’t have Ida Red - guess I don’t need it! My brother is going to send me Jonathon scions, and I’m derned if I know where I’m going to put them … Wish I had room for the trees like you do!

:-)M

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Mark are there varieties you tried and removed or non takes? I am amazed at your skill of maintaining so many varieties on that single beautiful tree.

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I ordered some scions from Horne Creek Farm (the same place @BlueBerry mentioned above) last year as well and I was very happy with the scions he sent. Great price and lots of variety to choose from!

Public Tree List 2019.xls (55 KB)

Here is the list he sent me last year

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I have noticed that Horne Creek also has several Limbertwig varieties. I may put an order in for some of these and you might check the list for some you don’t have :+1:

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Grafters: Do not go to this page

Heh, that’s funny. Kinda like telling an alcoholic to not go into that liquor store.

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Not skillfull - just persistent! Not all, or even many, of them do well. And since I have no specific plan I don’t have to worry about reaching my goals …

I took off Rhode Island Greening because I figured it would never ripen - but then I grafted on Gold Rush, which takes longer. I have had a heck of a time getting Macoun to take well, but it may be on there now. I’m pulling a sickly Fuji -not the right climate for it anyway- and if the Monark I grafted on several years ago made it I couldn’t tell you because I lost several tags. I may have Pristine. Or not. I lost track of a number of grafts after a bad wind storm blew off several of my tags. Since then I’ve learn how to attach them better. See how I am?

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I checked out Fedco, 39thparallel.com and fruitwood nursery for scions. I have no prior experience with any but all have a great selection from what I saw.

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This past spring was my first time grafting and I ordered my scions from Fedco as they have a good selection of cider varieties, which is what I am mostly interested in. Very nice looking scions, but unfortunately the plastic wrap I used when grafting didn’t hold well and only 3 of the 4 varieties I ordered took. Then my two year old broke one of the survivors off at the graft union, so now I’m down to 2… Better luck this coming Spring as I’ll be trying again and using better materials!

Just want to add, John Bunker, who started the Fedco trees division, is a really interesting guy and very knowledgeable apple historian and I really enjoy reading his writings and listening to him speak on various podcasts. For any one else interested in that sort of thing, I’d look him up.

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@39thparallel is an active member here and always helpful as well :+1:

I have bid on some of his ebay auctions but never won. Some I have lost in the final moments.

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@ncguire. This past year was my first grafting year as well. I also had some pretty poor results, but about 15-20 of mine were successful. I say 15-20 because at least 5 seem to have good unions but no new branches. Im waiting to see what happens with them in the spring. I tried multiple kinds of grafts, wrapping techniques, and such. Interestingly, some of my most successful were pretty crude looking and didnt seem to line up correctly. I would be interested in knowing if the two of yours that made it had anything in common.

My successful grafts were almost all apples, although the Barlett Pear scions took on several trees. I know that most folks on this topic have tons of experience, but its good to learn from someone with similar experience, too. Im going to wrap mine more thoroughly and also use wax on the end. I want to try and wrap more consistently using the same technique.

The folks on this topic are so kind to offer scions and their own experiences with grafting. I’ve also watched a lot of youtube videos of the same.

Wish us both the best as we endeavor to persevere this year!

As Peter Gabriel learns in this song, Dont give up!

https://youtu.be/98lNKjwYtaU

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Actually, I had a hard time getting the grafts wrapped tight and keeping them lined up with the plastic I was using, so I added rubber bands to a few of them to help hold them together. The ones with the rubber bands were about 75% successful. The ones without were about 10% successful. But I am switching to parafilm this Spring as I have heard good things about it and maybe it will stick better for a tighter wrap around the union. Will also keep the rubber bands ready, which seemed to crack and break off after a couple weeks in the sun, but did their job keeping the graft tight till some growth started to appear. Just want to add that I was grafting onto an existing tree, so some were in a bit awkward places. Seems grafting a new tree onto a rootstock may be a bit easier to wrap, which I am also going to try this spring.

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