Tree Grafting Workshop & Scion Exchange

GRAFTING WORKSHOP AND SCION EXCHANGE

Time to be a MAD SCIENTIST! Have fun cutting up plants! Let’s be Doctor Frankenstein for trees! Learn how to create fruit trees that grow multiple varieties. Introduce new fruit options to a crowded yard. Grafting is the process of attaching one variety of plant to a different variety of plant (such as a Fuji apple onto a Gala apple tree). 

The workshop will start with a quick overview of grafting. You’ll learn WHY to graft and HOW to graft and WHAT plant combinations will be successful and WHEN to graft!. Then you’ll get a demonstration with what works and what doesn’t. After this demonstration, you’ll get to try your hand at grafting and receive feedback. Supplies for grafting will be provided. 

For the scion exchange part, if you have fruit trees, please bring labeled "scions" (twigs) from your plants to exchange with other participants. The more plant varieties people bring-- the better! If you want to take scions home to graft onto your existing trees, bring a bag, tape for labeling, and a marker. 

Tips on how to collect scions to bring to the exchange.  

CUT SCIONS - look for last year’s growth. Pencil size width. Too fat and it is hard to close the split, too narrow and it is weaker and has less cambium  (green under bark) area to connect. Cut a 6-8” piece. Make sure it is healthy with no dead or diseased spots. Can be from fruit trees, berry bushes, grape vines etc…

LABEL SCIONS - wrap the individual scion, or a bundle of them with blue tape, or a weak masking tape, and write the name and variety on the tape -- Golden Dorsett Apple, Santa Rosa Plum. If you do not know the name of the variety, some people will not want to graft it onto their tree. However, if you can say it is the most incredible and prolific peach you’ve ever tasted, even though you don’t know the name, you might get some takers.

BAG the SCIONS - Put the lower ends of the scions, (buds facing upwards) in a damp paper towel and put them in a plastic bag in the fridge.

About the Presenter

Susan Emshwiller is a writer/filmmaker/artist who has been creating edible backyards with multiple grafted trees for over seventeen years. Her Santa Fe yard is home to Apples, Apricots, Pawpaws, Jujubes, Grapes, Pomegranates, Persimmons, Quinces, Honeyberries, Gooseberries, Autumn Olives, Nanking Bush Cherries, Cherry, Plum, Mulberries, Pear, Peaches, Chocolate Vines, Raisin Tree, Figs, Aronia, and Currants.