Pip to Blossom

Pip to Blossom A place to find out about grafting, see the progress of my little apple trees and share experiences.

Apple tree coming along nicely. I still need to pot on the ones in the smaller pots. Some lovely blossoms that smell jus...
30/04/2024

Apple tree coming along nicely. I still need to pot on the ones in the smaller pots. Some lovely blossoms that smell just like an apple 🌸🍎😋
Will be adding canes to some of them later this week as well, just to help them grow nice and straight. A few of them didn't make it through the winter. Unfortunately I didn't get as much time as I wanted to care for them through the colder months, but the main thing is that most of them are doing well

19/03/2024

Long not updated.
Apple trees doing alright second winter, first one post grafting.
A little bit of pruning required, that's a job to be done ASAP before too late in the season. Will be potting on some of them as well.
Photos will come when I get round to it. 🍎🌳

The apple trees are growing fast now, the warm weather and shining sun encouraging them🌡️☀️. Watering is required much m...
16/06/2023

The apple trees are growing fast now, the warm weather and shining sun encouraging them🌡️☀️. Watering is required much more often now.💦
Looks like a 99% success.
A plum seems to struggle a bit but all others seem happy enough. I am very happy that my "experimental" ones have also now started to look more lively and rapidly catching up. (the "experimental" ones were a couple of 'James Grieves' grafted on MM106 and M26, a dwarfing rootstock and a semi dwarfing, that I grafted for myself despite a poor match of stem diameter, because the variety has a special meaning to me).
I forgot to mention, I have also removed the grafting tape from 2 trees last week as I was curious to see how it was healing and I was impressed, they fused really well together and are strong enough to no longer need the tape. I won't remove the tape from all trees yet as some were grafted later, but over the next few days I might take it off the ones that have healed and are sturdy enough. 🌿🌳

🌸🌸🌸🌿 My apple and plum trees all doing pretty well. All growing at their own pace depending on the species and rootstock...
24/05/2023

🌸🌸🌸🌿 My apple and plum trees all doing pretty well. All growing at their own pace depending on the species and rootstock. Some are just starting to open their leaf buds and others are already well ahead in the game. Some have beautiful apple blossoms, which I feel very sad removing as I cannot allow them to bear fruits in their first year.
Learning curve every step of the way, I find it very important to double check what I do before I do it.
Still regularly removing any growth from the rootstock and trying to keep only two healthy bud growing on the scion (should be one, but I like to leave a back up for now, just in case😉). Watering regularly and more often now that the weather is warmer 🌸

My "babies" are slowly waking up. The pretty bad frost of the past few weeks slowed everything down, but I really hope t...
05/04/2023

My "babies" are slowly waking up. The pretty bad frost of the past few weeks slowed everything down, but I really hope that the temperatures will now be more spring-like. Buds are slowly opening on the scions (scions are the top part, the part that was grafted on the rootstock) which is a good sign that the sap is flowing from the rootstocks to the scions. 🙂🌳🌸🍎

A little while back, someone asked me why do I use RootGrow for my grafted apple trees. (they were thinking of the rooti...
14/03/2023

A little while back, someone asked me why do I use RootGrow for my grafted apple trees. (they were thinking of the rooting hormones used when propagating by cuttings, which helps the cuttings grow some roots, as cuttings do not have roots)

RootGrow is actually not a rooting hormone at all, but a fungi. It's Miccorhizal fungi,which is a fungi found in nature and beneficial to plants. It's actually such a fascinating subject that I could take hours writing about it, but since most people might not be keen to read for hours, I'll put it simply.
🌳💚🍄 Trees and other plants' roots use the Miccorhizal fungi as an extension to their own root system, helping the plants access more nutrients and water and also giving them many advantages. It allows trees to communicate about threats from diseases, pests, etc. through chemical signals that the fungi will help pass on to the neighbouring plants. The fungi forms a network of filaments that can reach incredible distances.
There's lots of very interesting facts to be found on the Internet, so I will leave it there for now 😉.

(not my picture)

So, with the horrible weather over past few days (or weeks?), finally a sunny/dry day. I had to use the opportunity to l...
14/03/2023

So, with the horrible weather over past few days (or weeks?), finally a sunny/dry day. I had to use the opportunity to look after my trees, which I had to cover and uncover every evening and morning because of the frost and overall bad weather.
Today, I couldn't miss the opportunity to go and rebuilt my mini polytunnel as two of the poles broke under the weight of the heavy tarpaulin that I use to protect them overnight.
It all looks better again and I am glad to see that most of the trees still seem happy. Had to regraft two of them as they were victims of the broken poles.
More severe frost on the way, so I'll be back to cover them more tonight. Under 3 layers of horticultural fleece at the moment. I spent 3hours doing all the work this morning,but I am satisfied with the result.

So.. The frost was mean last night, bottles did a small difference, but no obvious miracles.Just makes me think of the p...
09/03/2023

So.. The frost was mean last night, bottles did a small difference, but no obvious miracles.

Just makes me think of the psychometric charts on the HND, it now all starts to make sense.

08/03/2023

So.. Tonight it's so cold.. It even snowed a bit earlier, but now it's even too cold for snow to fall I think.
❄️So, I gave some trees🌳🌳🌳🍎 blankets and hot water bottles for the night (never had to do that before) 😅
Had to carefully place the hot water bottles as to not expose a plant to too much direct heat, but for the heat to hopefully maintain the temperature a few degrees higher underneath the fleece.. Let's hope it makes a difference.

Alex thought it was sweet to go cover the plants and give them a hot water bottle for the night.❄️🌌

❄️ Frost! 🥶So, I spent the past few days coming up with various ideas to protect my fruit trees from the frost (it's bee...
08/03/2023

❄️ Frost! 🥶

So, I spent the past few days coming up with various ideas to protect my fruit trees from the frost (it's been down to - 6°c at night).
Spent much time getting the material and setting up, but the latest is a mini polytunnel with two layers of horticultural fleece.. That barely did the job last night, so coming up with more ideas for tonight.

I wish I had known and waited a little longer before grafting the trees..

That's about two thirds of my trees grafted in the past few days, next few to be done tomorrow.
02/03/2023

That's about two thirds of my trees grafted in the past few days, next few to be done tomorrow.

Update time!Sunday - Moved the trees to their "home" (for now) - Thanks to Alvina Menzies for the space. Yesterday - we...
23/02/2023

Update time!
Sunday - Moved the trees to their "home" (for now) - Thanks to Alvina Menzies for the space.
Yesterday - went to get my plum and apple scions (thanks to Pittormie Fruit Farm and to Batie)
Today - Individually potted each tree. Added some RootGrow, watered,..
Used some normal plastic pots and some AirPots as well as Air Pruner pots, I'm looking forwards to see the results and difference done to the roots by the different pots.
My plan is to graft them tomorrow if I get the time.

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