As They Grow

With summer rolling on, we can begin to see standouts among our newly grafted fruit trees.

We've been working in the nursery in the morning hours, unwrapping graft unions which may girdle the trees and taking stock of varieties that look the most vigorous.

A graft union lightly girdled by raffia, used to keep the graft tight, but not removed early enough.

A successful whip and tongue graft, fully healed.

A healed cleft graft, with wax removed.

My favorite graft technique, though perhaps less aesthetic, the modified cleft graft.

Among the apples, Limbertwig varieties appear to be doing the best, in general. With some other standouts, such as Enterprise and various crabs.

Enterprise apple on M111 rootstock. Not surprised to see this variety doing well thus far.

As for pears, Nova appears the most vigorous so far.

Nova pear on OHxF97 rootstock.

Mulberries are all doing very well (I didn't get any photos of them though). As well as the pawpaws, jujubes and persimmons.

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Two Black Twig apples on Antonovka rootstock (standard).