Father and Son Grafted Olive

'Tsugiki' is the Japanese word for grafting. In bonsai, it is a very common practice to graft new type of foliage. Typical examples are seen in pines and junipers. In this video we see a rare grafting, possibly unique in its kind. Specifically, the owner of the tree, Mr. Paul Micallef pioneers in grafting the wild species variety of the olive (botanically known as Olea europaea subsp. europaea var sylvestris) onto the common cultivated olive. Here grafting works, as in other situations, because the stump and the graft belong to the same botanical family. As Malta is a small island we do not have the privilege of finding old wild olives, which have gnarled trunks, textured bark, and small leaves. So we must do what we can. Indeed, this tree is a rooted large cutting of the cultivated olive and Paul grafted it with wild olive scions to take advantage of the latter’s small leaves. In the video we see how Ignazio Giambrone starts to naturalize the cut-out blemish on the father and son trunks. Humble beginnings but a lot of potentiality in this endeavor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojnLA4h5V4o