How to Graft Flowering Fruit Trees

Cherry trees are easily grafted.

All healthy fruit trees flower. Each fragrant blossom has the potential, in the right conditions, to produce fruit. Grafting techniques for fruit trees are basically the same whether you're working with citrus fruit trees like lemon and lime or stone fruit trees like plum, peach and cherry. If you keep several basic steps in mind, you can graft flowering fruit trees to produce more of the fruit and flowers you love.

Things You'll Need

• Fruit tree rootstock
• Fruit tree cuttings
• Sharp knife
• Rubber bands
• Waterproof tape
• Plastic wrap

Instructions

1. 

   Radiant peach blossoms

   Graft when fruit trees are dormant (not flowering or fruiting) to avoid stressing the branches. Ask the owner of any flowering fruit tree you have your eye on before cutting a single twig. When you've secured permission, go ahead.

2. 

   Plum branches are good candidates for grafting.

   Check the branch you want to cut for signs of vigor. It should be flexible and have multiple buds of new growth. Cut a 6- to 9-inch branch at a 45-degree angle using a sharp knife. The angle is important, as it provides the widest possible area for matching to the host tree.

3. 

   Lemon and lime trees can be grafted to produce both kinds of fruit.

   Cut a branch of the same diameter from the host tree in your hard at the same 45-degree angle. Discard the branch.

4. 

   Apple blossoms intensify with grafting.

   Match the cut ends of the graft branch and the host tree snugly together. It is critical that the cambium layer just beneath the bark of both branches meets in order for the two cut ends to heal together and form a single, healthy branch.

5. 

   Graft sterile trees like weeping cherry to get flowers with no fruit.

   Secure the grafted ends with a rubber band just tightly enough to hold it together. A rubber band will flex as the graft expands and begins to grow.

6. Wrap the graft in plastic wrap and secure with waterproof tape to protect it from insects and excess moisture during the healing process. Repeat steps 2 through 6, grafting more branches until you are satisfied with the new shape of your flowering fruit tree.

7. Wait three to six weeks, then unwrap the grafts and check for a whitish raised scar called a callus. In several more weeks, you will see new buds and leaves on the grafted branch if it is successful.

Tips & Warnings

• Trim away some of the lower branches of the host tree once the grafts are firmly established to direct more nutrients to grafted limbs and increase their flowering and production.

References

• University of Minnesota Extension: Grafting and Budding Fruit Trees
• Organization for Rehabilitation of the Environment: Grafting Fruit Trees
• University of Kentucky: Reproducing Fruit Trees by Graftage: Budding and Grafting

Resources

• University of Rhode Island GreenShare: Why Fruit Trees Fail to Bear
• University of California Cooperative Extension: Environmental Horticultural Notes