It was in my Six on Saturday post from 28th January this year that I mentioned grafting a few scions of what may be ‘Meridian’ onto a tree of ‘Holstein’. I last looked at them when they were just breaking bud, at which stage all four grafts appeared to have taken. Today I had a closer look, mainly to check that the ties had disintegrated and that there was no unwanted growth needing removal.
All four grafts have taken, all have made what look to be strong unions and all had put on between 30 and 40cm of growth, at least as much as the new shoots of the parent tree. I think that has to be regarded as a success. I removed a couple of shoots of the parent tree that were so close to the graft as to be unclear whether they were stock or scion.
The shoots on the stock were much thicker than the scion material I had, so I made a diagonal cut right through the scion but only cut part way into the stock shoot, so that the scion was in effect attached to one side of the shoot. It has made no difference to the quality of the graft union.
The thicker shoot is the ‘Holstein’ stock, which I cut off then shaved a piece from the side of to match the horizontal cut right through the scion shoot which goes up to the left. The paler bark at the base of the scion is callus formed at the union. The scion was about 10cm long with around five buds. The two apical buds have made strong growth, already some 40cm long, while one of the lower buds is starting to turn into a fruiting spur. The shoot going up to the right is from the rootstock side of the shoot so I removed it so there would be no confusion about which variety it belonged to. It wasn’t essential to do so, but I’m easily confused and opted for clarity.
For the next couple of years I will winter prune these new additions to build up a section of the tree that is ‘Meridian’ rather than ‘Holstein’, then I shall summer prune it along with ‘Holstein’ itself. I had been concerned in January that the tree was on M25, a very vigorous stock which probably doesn’t lend itself to summer pruning and which would have wanted to produce a much bigger tree than I have room for, but the amount of flower this spring, after just two seasons of summer pruning, has reassured me that it should all work out as planned.
garden ruminations 
I don’t know anything about summer pruning of apple trees. Is this reserved for espaliers or ?
I always prune our trees in about February, or whenever the snow is mostly gone, so we can be sure not to stomp the other surround plants & bushes.
I do have one tree that has reduced fruiting to near non-existence. Possibly this would be a good candidate for grafting onto one of our other heavy fruiters. And/or it’s time for a bit more than the usual prune, and some heavy limb removal is required to promote fruiting. Granted, these are really old trees.
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Summer pruning is the usual method for trained trees like espaliers and cordons but there’s no reason it can’t be applied to a tree of any shape. The main attraction for me is that it enables me to restrict the tree to much the size it is now, which is as big as I want in an overcrowded small garden. The climate of Cornwall, as compared to much of the rest of the UK, tends to encourage growth rather than flowering, and summer pruning can compensate for that tendency too. There are a number of reasons why a tree may not fruit much and you do need to work out which it is then take the appropriate course to get it back on track. Apple grafting is much easier than most gardeners think, it’s well worth trying and you really have nothing to lose. I’ve done a couple of posts on it in the past.
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Great to see and read about your success with grafting. My great-grandfather was successful with grafting, and my dad did a little with it, too. I haven’t tried, but it’s fascinating. I wish you continued success.
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Simple splice grafting of apples is about as easy and reliable as grafting gets, a great starter plant.
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