Hardwood cuttings from apple
steephill
Posts: 2,638
in Fruit & veg
Has anyone tried taking hardwood cuttings from an apple tree? One of ours was badly damaged in a freak storm the other weekend and I had to reduce it to a 5 foot stump. The tree was probably about 50 years old and I would like to preserve some memory of it. I am hoping that it will sprout some new branches but will also try some hardwood cuttings.
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Grafting is your best bet, steephill, but you do need another apple tree to graft onto of course.
You can buy root stocks to graft onto online. Blackmoor Nurseries are renowned for their fruit trees. Failing that, you could try growing the cuttings as they are but its very hit and miss, expect 5 plants out of 20 cuttings!
You might be able to take a Hardwood cutting, take a two foot piece containing 2 year old wood, plunge into prepared ground now and see what happens. Though grafting is definitely the best way, I'm sure you don't want an apple on its own roots. Blackmoors are your best bet for rootstocks. You can get good advice on grafting from Youtube but I would take care with which vids you watch. Stephen Hayes is very good. You'll need to take your scion now and store it in moist tissue in a plastic bag in the fridge until March ish depending on weather. I've grafted as late as August and it took as long as the scion is stored well.
Thanks, finding rootstock is a problem - Blackmoor only have cherry, plum and pear rootstocks available. I'll give cuttings a go anyway and can always try grafting next year if they take and I remember to order rootstock early enough.
You can get them also from Ashridge trees they have m27 m9 m26 mm106 and m25, in size order. Other suppliers do them too.