I’ve always wanted to try grafting. My family has grafting skills going way back–I had aunts and cousins who used to graft orchards over near Yakima back in the day.

Since my cherry trees don’t produce well, I thought I could graft branches from new varieties onto the established trees so they can cross pollinate more easily. Also, there are two types of wild cherry in the garden here, so I wanted to see if they would support sweet cherry grafts. And lastly, I read that plum trees will accept sweet cherry grafts, so I wanted to try that.

Here is another motivating factor. I heard David the Good speak on the Epic Gardening podcast and I love his attitude. He has a “why not try it–what have you got to lose? attitude that really convinced me to attempt grafting. HERE is his video.

I took some scions off my Stella cherry and my Vandalay cherry, and I ordered Rainier scions from eBay. I also got a cheap grafting kit with a knife and grafting tape. I stored the scions in the fridge and when the weather seemed right I took the plunge. I grafted two Stella scions onto the Vandalay tree, two Vandalay scions and two Rainier scions onto the Stella tree, a Stella scion and two Vandalay scions onto the wild or possibly black cherry seedling near the driveway, one Stella scion onto the bitter cherry in the driveway bed, and one two Stella scions and one Rainier scion on the Beauty plum tree. Here is what a few of them look like:

And here is the full Beauty plum tree, in full bloom as of today. I haven’t figured out how to keep squirrels out of that tree, but I’m going to make every effort this year because I really love plums!