About the service
I always start the same way: a slow walk around the garden with the owner, talking about what the work is actually for. One person wants an old apple tree top-worked to three or four varieties so a single tree gives fruit all summer; another wants a favourite blackcurrant bush multiplied because that variety is no longer sold anywhere; a third wants a young tree raised from grandmother's plum while it is still alive. The goal decides everything else — how many grafts to make, which rootstock to use, and which month I should come.
I cut scions only from healthy, cropping trees with clean bark, no gumming and no suspicious swellings, and I never bring material in from quarantine areas or accept it from anyone who does. That is not paperwork: it is how you avoid carrying something into a garden that takes years to get rid of. Wood is collected in early winter and stored near freezing, in damp sand or under snow, every bundle labelled with variety, date and parent tree. In spring I work with whip-and-tongue, cleft and bark grafts depending on the thickness of the stock; in mid-summer I bud with a dormant eye. The knife is kept razor sharp, which is why a first-aid kit travels with me — cuts are part of this trade, and it is better to close them at once.
Timing is tied hard to the season. I do not graft in winter frost or in thirty-degree heat: the window is short and it cannot be moved to suit a calendar. And I say the honest thing about take rates before any money changes hands — nobody gets a hundred per cent. Some grafts simply do not move: a scion chilled, a tie slipped, a union dried out, a bird landed on a fresh shoot. So we plan a surplus, place more grafts than we need results, and repeat the failures next year in the same season. On a big tree that is standard practice anyway — the crown is converted over two or three years, not in one go.
What the job includes:
— garden survey, rootstock selection and a compatibility check for the variety you want;
— scion collection from healthy trees, cold storage, labels with variety and date;
— whip-and-tongue, cleft and bark grafting, plus summer budding with a dormant eye;
— staged top-working of a mature apple, pear or plum onto several varieties;
— tying, grafting wax or mastic, shading and bird protection for the first weeks;
— softwood cuttings of currants, gooseberries and ornamentals in a covered propagation frame;
— first-year care: tying in new shoots, removing the ties in time, pinching competing growth;
— an honest count of how many grafts are needed for the number of plants you want, and a visit schedule.
I cut scions only from healthy, cropping trees with clean bark, no gumming and no suspicious swellings, and I never bring material in from quarantine areas or accept it from anyone who does. That is not paperwork: it is how you avoid carrying something into a garden that takes years to get rid of. Wood is collected in early winter and stored near freezing, in damp sand or under snow, every bundle labelled with variety, date and parent tree. In spring I work with whip-and-tongue, cleft and bark grafts depending on the thickness of the stock; in mid-summer I bud with a dormant eye. The knife is kept razor sharp, which is why a first-aid kit travels with me — cuts are part of this trade, and it is better to close them at once.
Timing is tied hard to the season. I do not graft in winter frost or in thirty-degree heat: the window is short and it cannot be moved to suit a calendar. And I say the honest thing about take rates before any money changes hands — nobody gets a hundred per cent. Some grafts simply do not move: a scion chilled, a tie slipped, a union dried out, a bird landed on a fresh shoot. So we plan a surplus, place more grafts than we need results, and repeat the failures next year in the same season. On a big tree that is standard practice anyway — the crown is converted over two or three years, not in one go.
What the job includes:
— garden survey, rootstock selection and a compatibility check for the variety you want;
— scion collection from healthy trees, cold storage, labels with variety and date;
— whip-and-tongue, cleft and bark grafting, plus summer budding with a dormant eye;
— staged top-working of a mature apple, pear or plum onto several varieties;
— tying, grafting wax or mastic, shading and bird protection for the first weeks;
— softwood cuttings of currants, gooseberries and ornamentals in a covered propagation frame;
— first-year care: tying in new shoots, removing the ties in time, pinching competing growth;
— an honest count of how many grafts are needed for the number of plants you want, and a visit schedule.
