Some easy grafting
Well Winter has gotten its chill on, and the weather has been rotten, but that just means some lovely sunrises and real enjoyment of being outside when we manage it. Here’s my sunrise from Wednesday-
Ah Wednesday, one of two days in the past 3 weeks that we didn’t get rained on.
What I am obsessed with this week
I’ve been getting soil tests done. Lots of them. Everywhere. I am very excited.
I am using Hill Labs, who are very patient because they are used to dealing with farmers and people who know what they’re doing. I’ll do a full writeup soon.
Grafting citrus
You know how citrus sometimes gets those really spiky branches and leaves coming up from the bottom? That is trifolata root stock, and the citrus you want to eat has been grafted on. However I often pick up old citrus plants where the top has totally died, and graft my own citrus on top, for a cheap and fun way to get more citrus.
Citrus is fruiting at this time of year, and grafting is done this time of year, so it’s a great match.
When I see a tree which is doing well in Wellington I take a couple of cuttings. You can do this too- you need secateurs, either a shoot of trifolata or a really sad citrus plant that looks almost dead, and a bit of tape that will stick in all weather (I used electrical tape).
Here’s my branch on the left, and sad citrus on the right.
I’ve circled the old graft for your interest. Down the bottom I have cut off the existing shoot about 5cm up from the soil level, and cut off a shoot from my cutting which is the same diameter. Make sure everything is clean!
Now I literally just push them together to make an exact match, and tape it, tightly, to make sure that it will stay connected.
I’ve made sure to leave some leaves on top- in this case I could only manage literally one- and I pruned the rest back so it isn’t top heavy or in need of too much food at once. I want my lemon to start bushing quite low to the ground so you can see I’m encouraging it to have 3 shoots- the one with the leaf, and both sides of the Y at the top.
And now we play the waiting game! I will be checking to make sure that the tape is holding the citrus on properly, and I might even move the stake to hold the grafted shoot up to take some of the weight off of the bottom, but aside from that I’m going to treat it like all of my other plants in Winter (pretty much ignore them unless they need feeding or pruning). Come midsummer I will hopefully see some new growth! Anything below my graft line will be cut off, as it will be trifolata root stock which grows completely different plants.
If you have a citrus tree that’s died right back, but there is a suspicious spot with red or blue dotted on it, and a living citrus below that dot, your citrus has probably been grafted, but died back to the graft. Give this a go!
Have a great week everyone.