If you have a fruiting tree or shrub that is unhappy/dying, but still has living roots, would you say potting it, to provide it with more clement conditions, would be a good move? I don’t want to waste money.
2 Likes
The wife does this religiously with her trees and plants. She will drag home long neglected potted plants from these Estate Sales she holds. Some sitting around with no help as probate court battles wage.
She will pull them out. trim away and cut up some. Then re-pot them or place them in the yard. They turn out fantastic. I’m the fruit tree nut. But she is a green thumb of the family.
2 Likes
I was digging up a Hazelnut this Spring, but I saw it had living roots, but I don’t see it sending anything up from its roots as of yet, so do you think I could salvage it if I pot it up?
1 Like
I’d try. But then I like Hazelnuts…lol
You only lose the labor, dirt and pot trying.
1 Like
See, I had purchased a Dwarf Golden Delicious Apple from Stark Bros, but it never broke dormancy (was bare root), and eventually died above the graft, but it was sending out new growth from the roots, so I took two of those, potted one, and planted the other. The potted one was happy, but, after a day or two, the other was very sad (strong afternoon Sun one day, frost the next night, I believe), so, instead of letting it perish (too much time and effort went in to that guy growing), I potted it up, and put it in a greenhouse, and it looks happy again (it had been drooping, but now it’s standing straight up), so I thought maybe I could rescue those Hazelnuts, as well.
1 Like
That’s why I walk my grafts a few times a day. I had 4 singles in small pots doing well in the green house. Then they stopped. Re-potted them and they are back on track.
1 Like
What does it mean to walk your graft? I:s that just a joke?
No. I literally have them lined up on a concrete pad by rootstock they are on. 133 trees.
1 Like
So, you’re saying you take them from the greenhouse to the shade or sunny area?
We take a walk through the food forest and orchard with my partner and I have to go and take a peak at a graft and he goes in a sing-song mocking voice: “I haven’t checked on that one, yet, TODAY! Right?” Thanks for making me feel normal. 
3 Likes
Yes; today a pot of 6 grafts{2 being 2 grafts on one rootstock.} seemed off. So out of the pot they came. All turned out to be my first attempts to cleft graft.
So I regrafted them. Glad I did. Saved a Red Detriot and managed to make a graft on P.2 and G.214 with it. Also Tanyard Seedling was dying off. Retrimmed it and regrafted. All to the "Q’ cut method with a light weak coating of rooting hormone water. Saved 2 Circassian apples. A pair of Dorsett Golds. And moved 3 rootstocks to the stooling beds.
1 Like
I planted a couple of rhododendrons in a location that they were very unhappy with. Both seemed to be dying. I dug them up and transplanted them both into a grow bag. Before replanting them I soaked them in a wheelbarrow with a balanced fertilizer mixed into the water.
After being in the new grow bags and location for only a few days both trees look totally different. They are leafing out and one is blooming for the first time. Actually stunning what a difference it made, I thought one was going to die for sure and the other was not too much better before this.
1 Like
Excellent!
1 Like
Inexplictly found a King Solomon and Hoover both on G.214 that were doing great. The leaves shrivelled up and dead.
The G.214 on Hoover was dead as a door nail. My King Solomon has one lousy live bud left right above the graft union.
Odd, like the other G.214’s that died; the graft union was smooth and well healed.
Put the King Solomon back in water to see if it will come back.
Found a dead Pionier on G.214 in the pad. Rootstock looked fine. Retrimmed it and regrafted Dorsett Gold on it.
But I am not liking the fact problems seem to stalk my high dollar Geneva stuff. So far P.2 has been a joy to work with and not requiring much intervention.
1 Like