Just before lockdown I rushed to get cuttings of a lovely Cox-type variety, Elstar, happier than Cox near the sea. Then did my best with Stanley knife + electrical insulation tape (and in one case, a Tesco sticking plaster!) to graft scions onto three trees shooting strongly from their rootstocks. I used very simple saddle grafts, so well demonstrated by Stephen Hayes (Fruitwise videos).
I was pretty sure I’d left it too late: hope over experience, definitely. Amazement, therefore, when some grafts started “moving”: this is how the first to take now looks-
What intrigued me and my co-experimenter Lady Nightingale was, week after week some grafts showed no signs of moving but clearly weren’t dead either…
After three months of apparently doing nothing, my last sleeping graft has awoken: below is how it looked yesterday.
The overall success rate is 11 out of 22 or 50%: what one normally expects, I understand, for grafts done at the right time with pre-selected scion wood, so I am feeling very lucky indeed.
