is that flowers on those scions in the 1st pic?
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Yeah I pulled most of them off. One has a couple of leaves coming out around. The other doesn’t.
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wow ! talk about vigor! i hope my pear scions from last year fruit for me. i have them grafted to a mountain ash.
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Why?
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I had a wild plum tree that I stumped last year, got suckers to grow, and then grafted to the tips on a few suckers this spring (as seen on youtube channel “all about grafting” All About Grafting - YouTube )
the tree probably has 30 suckers and I tip grafted four and got two takes. should I prune off the rest of the suckers now? or wait a month or two to get more growth on the takes first?
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Why what
Why graft a blueberry to a cranberry?
Cranberry is in right place and easier to grow than blueberry
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I have not grafted blueberry.(yet)
i remember reading somewhere to graft blueberry’s to sparkleberry. to make single stemmed blueberry’s that are easier (less waste) to harvest mechanicly.
Sparkelberry since it’s supposed to be less fussy about soil, and the stem can get older. So longer lifespan of the grafted plant.
For cranberry i would not know. It’s different species but same genus. So id rate your chances decently high. If you try it out. plzz keep us up to date 
im verry curious how it goes.
Im still trying to buy a sparkelberry. but it’s hard to find in EU
Will do
Never heard of spark berry. Is it available in US?
first google results. no experiance
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Sparkleberry,also called Farkleberry.They grow wild in the southeastern US.I bought two plants from Mail Order Natives,a few years ago,intending on doing what Oscar was writing about.
Their growth habit,for me,was a lot of somewhat thin canes,that were droopy.I wasn’t sure how to proceed and make a single trunk.I probably could have thinned them out to one and used a support.
One eventually died and the other may still be growing.Unsure about the cold hardiness.
It looks like Mail Order Natives is out of them,but other places might.If buying,don’t get the Ilex Sparkleberry or Winterberry,that’s a different plant.
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I ordered seeds and tried to germinate Sparkleberries. The germination rate was decent but hard to baby them when we have >90F days in summer. All the plants pretty much stopped growing once they produced true leaves and then died. I am not experienced in growing from seed, so I might be missing something. I am very interested in growing blueberries without worrying about pH
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I bench grafted several new apple trees. They are now in pots in my heated greenhouse(65-70F) and have 1-2 inches growth form 2-3 buds each. I badly need space in the greenhouse, when do you think it is safe to move them outside(still in pots)? I can probably set up a small frame around them and cover for the night with tarp.
Your low down grafts will not grow out well on that pear, they will be dominated by the top. I would prune the top off to get things more equal… the Red Bartlett will grow back from somewhere so you don’t have to make a point of keeping it anywhere (yet).
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Scott, when you say prune the top off, are you talking about pruning to above the upper chip grafts or including them down to the branches lower down? Do you have any advice of the timing of the pruning (should I do it now because the low down grafts will establish better or can I wait until I see if my attempt at the chip grafts took for my own edification)? Thanks for the advice
Brian
@galinas
I think your apple bench grafts will be fine outside.
I often bench graft apple and pear and put outside with no problem.
They callus at normal spring temperatures fine .
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I put my pear bench grafts directly from the bench to in ground outside a couple of weeks ago. We’ve since had temperature down to 28. I’m not worried. They are in frosted tree tubes.
One I bench grafted, then put back in the fridge for a couple of weeks before planting outside in the ground a couple of weeks ago.
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Mine are swelling like crazy too
I used vinyl tape in them. Probably need to cut and replace with rubber
Brian, there is no one right answer. I personally would start by pruning right above the top chip and go from there. If the lower things are not growing well, take the chips off.
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