Combined forces
Grafting allows Toby to tap into his inner Frankenstein and give his favourite plants a chance to be even better
ISPENT hours of my childhood building with LEGO, making everything from lampshadescraping towers to giant ocean liners. Although I’ve long ditched the plastic bricks, I still love combining components to make something new, which probably explains my current passion for grafting.
Just like LEGO, grafting involves fixing one part of a plant onto the roots of another. Although it might seem incredibly technical – with its own lexicon of names like ‘side veneer’, ‘whip and tongue’, ‘chip’, ‘T’ and ‘cleft’ – the principle of grafting is incredibly easy.
Below the bark or ‘skin’ of all plants is a layer of green growth cells aka (should you need a conversation starter) vascular cambium. What makes this layer special is its ability to repair and meld not only within itself but with parts of other related species or cultivars.
It sounds new-fangled (Frankenscience, even) but the method is as old as the Garden of Eden. It was common among Roman and Ancient Greek olive and vine growers, quickly turning hillsides of run-of-the-mill seedlings into valuable crops.
It works on the same principle now as then. Take a sprig of a productive or tasty plant. Slot it into a cleft cut into the trunk of an existing vine or tree. Once the sprigs start to grow, any buds from below the cleft are removed, leaving the sprig to form leaves, shoots and fruits.
The speed at which large numbers of plants can be grafted is just one of its benefits. It also ensures good health. As a rule, roses with large flowers are
weaker than their hedgerow cousins. By combining a large-bloomed cultivar with a vigorous, disease-resistant root, you get big blooms on strong-growing plants.
For fruit, the benefits of grafting are even more profound. Rootstocks can control the size of trees, so you don’t need a ladder to harvest apples. As well as inheriting healthy roots, grafted branches come into production years (even decades) earlier than the same apples, pears and citrus raised from cuttings. So why not give it a go? It’s something to show off about – and it’s easier than you think.
“The principle of grafting is incredibly easy”