Grafting bonsai: Prunus mume

Hello to all IBC members,

Grafting is one of the way to propagate a great quantity of the Japanese apricot trees (Prunus mume) . Every year, I graft about 200 Prunus mume in my Lotus Bonsai studio.

Basic materials:

-A clean paper cutter and a razoir blade (very practical compared to traditional tools)
-A piece of kitchen food plastic
-Some less than 1 year old Prunus myrobalan, the rootstock for grafting.
-with the Prunus myrobalan, you can graft most the cherry flower trees (Prunus and its flower varieties)
-A small plastic green house to maintain the scion alive.

Grafting time:

-Grafting:From March to Avril.
-Weaning:after 3 months


Basic material for grafting


Preparing the the scion and the rootstock


A used razoir blade for grafting (here a maple)


The scion and the rootstock are grafting together.


The food plastic is used to seal the grafting place.


A small green house to keep the freshness of the scions. You can also use a single plastic bag to keep fresh the scion.


The Prunus myrobalan rootstock from the field growth.



Giang,
___________________
www.lotus-bonsai.com

Hi Giang.

I appreciate you showing these wonderful grafting pictures and sharing your expertise with us. I have 2 questions....

Unless they are VERY well done, it seems like the graft union always shows. To ME, this destroys the look of a bonsai. Why not graft them much lower, like right into the root level of the understock? Seems like that would produce a much more attractive bonsai in the future.

Since ume can be reproduced from cuttings, why not simply root them? You may not be as successful quantity wise and it may be slower, but again for bonsai I'd prefer not to have a graft to worry about hiding later.

Thanks,

R

Russell Coker wrote:Hi Giang.

Unless they are VERY well done, it seems like the graft union always shows. To ME, this destroys the look of a bonsai.

R

I agree, I have been watching one seller on Ebay who keeps listing Mume and takes all the pictures to carefully hide the AWFUL graft that is apparent on each tree. I can live with a graft if its done low for bonsai, but more often than not we see material grafted for nursery trade being sold for bonsai.

I actually bought a maple this fall that I fell in love with and one of its selling points to me was the nearly perfect low graft that made both myself and the experienced nursery Bonsaist proprietor both wonder if it actually even WAS a graft. That may sound strange but I look at that graft as an example of well executed horticultural skill, just as the rest of the tree is.

Also Giang thank you again for another wonderful "how-to" thread!
-Jay

Hi,
Grafting is widely use in commercial horticulture. But on the artistic plan, it's not suitable for bonsai. However, it's a useful technique to propagate some varieties that we are not able to reproduce correctly such as some Acer palmatum 'Seigen' or 'Deshojo' by cuttings.

Grafting is just the first step that we use to have the selected variety. Then, I'd use another method of ground layering to get rid of the undisired grafting union, often seen on conifers or deciduous trees.

Concerning the Prunus mume, its cuttings rate is very uncertain. Grafting is also used for the back budding on the ume.


The grafted variety is ready to be weaned.


After the weaning


The ground layering is applied to create the a new independant root system.

Giangs,
___________________
www.lotus-bonsai.com

Thanks, that makes sense!

Sorry for the neiwbe question but were do I get the root stock from any tree or from a mume tree and its from the roots correct?

An other question : do you cut and collect the scion before grafting ( 1 or 2 month before grafting) or the same day you graft ?
when we graft apple trees in april, we collected scions in february and putting them in sand , inverted, so that the scion is almost dry

@Micheal, the root stock is the wild prunus, Prunus myrobalan.
@bcd, the scions are collected the same day for grafting.
giang

any help or advice for adding inner shoots on long sections of bare branches. i only have one old and very mature tree so the scions will need to come from the branch tips of the same tree as well, so i'm unsure about timing, size of scion etc

thanks

Thanks so much, this gives me some confirmation that my plans might work - recently bought prunus, apricot and quince, all with grafts, and I'm planning on ground/air-layering the lot of them.
Since these are all fruiting varieties, my argument was that these trees were grafted because it's the quickest way to get something you can sell, but still has the properties of the parent plant, as opposed to not having viable root systems naturally.
Fingers crossed