This is Irish spire grafted to Bud118 it was growing well until now.
Its always had a lot of blind wood and those nodes are absent of buds.
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It looks like the rootstock is dying and the leaves are heading that way now as well. When all the leaves wilt like that I have never managed to save a tree.
Cut an inch or two above the graft union and hope for the best. But chances are slim.
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I have no idea
Trying to see myself
Do you cover with huditiy dome ?
Do you set in shade (which I do)
I sm tring to figure out
Do some plants *trees( want rest or large amounts of hormones (
to sur vive
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the root stock looks healthy.
But I found the problem right here at the graft union. There is one healty bud connected to all that dead tissue.
I am going to cut it off and soak it in superthive before grafting it to something else. Going to apply kocine to the dead tissue unless you have anything better to suggest.
It looks like to the left of that crack is dead and to the right is alive. It looks like there is a bit of scion alive there (that one flower cluster) so if you cut off along that crack it should grow back from that one cluster. or at least that is what I would try…
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I’d do what Scott says and try to grow that flower cluster bud (remove the flowers asap) and then you’ll have green wood for budding mid-August. It’s a risky, complicated, situation there. I also agree with Stan that you need to lop off the rest off the rootstock above that flower bud cluster. I would not try to graft that blooming shoot. Instead, let it grow a little green budding wood and definitely bud that this year and don’t wait. That thing is on the cusp of death, literally. There’s drying out of the bark like skin being visible to the eye and that crack is damaging big-time.
You got a few shots with bud wood if it stays alive cause it’ll grow a tiny bit and probably a couple buds and they’re going to be on real skinny a shoot. Probably 1/8th thickness…
I’ve seen enough stuff to know what’s going to happen. That tree is going to wish to kill that flowering cluster ‘outright’ as soon as possible. And I know what it has left in it, too. I’ve seen it.
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I did not even notice the flowers. What complicates this even more is this is a coumnar cultivar with the short internodes.
What’s going to happen is someway/somehow, you’re going to need to slip that under bark whether the entire piece, or, available buds.
I will only say again, if you can operate a knife which you can, I’ve seen your work, your whip & tongue, etc… you’ll make (two exact cuts)… That you’ll join together. If you can manage it because you have more than 1 available bud, then you should make the first graft a wedge that’s long with a single bud at the tip. You’ll cut the back off (very flat) beginning slighly above the bud and this will be about a one inch long piece of green-looing-wood. Then you flip the scion 180 and make about a 1/4 in. wedge on the front - which will be the side the bud is facing from…
Then make the same length + width cut on the rootstock with a wedge you can slip the 1/4" wedge of your scion under/into. Cover it up with parafilm so it’s tightly in place and so a thin layer is over the bud…
Keep enough rootstock in place and with leaves above (buds you lay into the rootstock wood.) next-spring once the leaves above the bud ‘chipped in’ bud and leaves unfurl and grow a bit (a few inches…) then cut - off the rootstock 1/4" above your bud.
Hopefully you have a second bud that is useful. The growth is often “wimpy”. Maybe 2-3 mm wide.