There are three main grafting techniques we use in winter— whip tongue, cleft, and bark grafting. Bark grafting is used when grafting onto rootstocks or branches that are larger than about 30 mm in diameter, and is a good way to change a whole [...]

Budding is an easy way to graft a new variety on to an existing fruit tree, fix pollination problems (and boost production) by adding a polliniser, or save a tree that has died back to the graft. As long as the bark is still lifting on the hos [...]

Growing your own fruit trees is a seasonal process involving lots of patience, and made up of many small jobs at different times of the year. Each month we let you know what they are (and how to do them), but we thought it would also be useful [...]

The grafting method you choose depends on the size of the rootstock tree you’re grafting onto. This article looks at cleft grafting, which is perfect for larger rootstocks, or when you have a mismatch between the size of your rootstock, and th [...]

If you know what to look for, and you’re lucky, you might be able to glean some free fruit trees, either from your garden or somebody else’s. Volunteer trees (ie, trees that come up by themselves) may have grown from seed, or can be suckers fr [...]

It’s usually pretty obvious by the end of spring whether or not your grafts have taken, which gives you the chance to decide what to do next. In this article we look at some successes and failures to see what we can learn. Read the article in [...]

Grafting has been practised for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, and is the method by which all our known heritage varieties of fruit have been preserved through the generations. Modern grafting techniques rely both on refrigeration (to k [...]

There are lots of good reasons for grafting fruit trees: to change varieties, preserve a heritage or familiar variety or to add a polliniser to a tree that flowers well but doesn’t produce much fruit. This week we look at reasons for grafting, [...]

Budding can be used to convert an existing fruit tree to a new variety, fix pollination problems by adding a pollinising branch to a tree, create a multigraft (or ‘fruit salad’) tree, ‘fix’ a grafted tree that has died back to the rootstock, o [...]

Grafting your own fruit trees is a great way to change varieties in your garden, preserve a heritage variety, or add a polliniser to a tree that flowers well, but doesn’t produce much fruit. In this article we get down to the nitty-gritty with [...]

Growing your own fruit trees from seed is easy, cheap and nearly always successful, and now is the time of year to be collecting apple and pear seeds and storing them over winter, to start your new trees next spring. Given the right conditions [...]

With fruit trees going up in price every year, growing your own fruit trees from scratch becomes an attractive option, especially when you realise how easy it is. Autumn is the time to be planning where you’ll get the rootstocks that you can l [...]