Custom Grafting

Don't see what you're looking for among my current nursery offerings? Or perhaps you have a special old fruit tree that you'd like to give a new life to? I offer custom grafting in several contexts:

1) You are welcome to survey the list of varieties in my orchard and make custom requests for me to graft and sell to you. I graft in August, grow the tree out the following year, and by that autumn - or the next spring; your choice - your tree is ready for its new home. This advance planning is a good choice for new orchards, when it is advisable to spend one or two years before planting preparing your soil. Read below for more information and variety options.

2) It is common for us to have sentimental attachments to fruit trees. Fruit trees often hold stories - stories of our ancestors, of family recipes, of the old country, of migration, of new beginnings. If you have a tree that is special to you, I can take a branch from it and graft it onto new roots, allowing it to grow into its own new tree. For example, say you have a fruit tree planted by a beloved relative, and the original tree is not doing so well, or is on a property that will be sold. A single branch from that tree can get a fresh start in a new location. The branch would need to be collected either in winter for me to graft that spring, or in mid-summer for me to graft in August.

3) An entire tree can be changed over to a new variety in a dramatic form of grafting called 'topworking'. If you have a tree that makes fruit you're not a huge fan of (perhaps the apples are bland or scab-ridden, or the pears have stone cells), I can change it to a variety of your choice. In this case I would need to collect the scion by late winter, and grafting takes place in May. Below are some topworking pictures from my orchard; you can also read about it from the Philadelphia Orchard Project: The Lost Art of Topworking.

Below are some examples of this at work in my nursery & orchard. If you'd like to discuss any of these options, please contact me via the form at the bottom of this page.

A bud of a chosen variety is spliced onto rootstock.

The bud is sealed with a special tape and an elastic to hold it in place and allow for cellular fusion.

Next spring, the bud leafs out and grows up into a new tree.

Varietes available for custom order:

Apple: Sabina, Gold Rush, Roxbury Russet, Florina, Akane, Mutsu, Cortland, Empire, Tangowine, Patten Greening, Macoun, Jonagold, Milwaukee, Liberty.

Plum: Mt. Royal, Shiro, Burbank, Toka, Brookgold, Damson, Italian

Peach: Harrow Diamond, Reliance, Frost

Sour cherry: Evans

Sweet cherry: Windsor

Here a damaged pear tree was cut to below the damage, and two new pear scions are grafted; the one that grows the best will be selected as the new tree.