Rootstocks And Seedlings

Plum orchard year three on chokecherry rootstocks with interstems. first time there's been a bloom with some wild plums mixed in, should be fruit.

Giant hyssop. the seeds are tiny so starting them in a clump, then gently pull it apart and plant small clusters into plugs. same process for most of the perennial flower seeds.

Narrow leaved echinacea, a native species. I divided these small trays of starts and transplanted into large plug trays, will see how they do. echinacea is a perennial wildflower, so I'm thinking they'll be trimmed and offered as dormant plug in the fall or next spring. just getting into more herbaceous perennials and sorting out the best way to grow them and send out to people.

Z graft everything. I find that most field grafts, unless the scion size and body position is just right for whip and tongue, the z graft is now my goto. when I bench graft, sure whip and tongue. my recent run of sixty different apple scions onto seedlings, unless you stand over them, z graft all the way. we'll see what the take it like next month.

Trying something out. 2x4 beds fit neatly under 3 bulb crates. why? because the shade reduced stress for transplants, they're happy to be in 50% shade for a week, keeps up humidity and helps prevent them from wilting over in the sun. the uncovered bed has 3 drills of siberian crabapple, they won't get up to grafting size this year but it gets them growing, and I'll plant them out with more space next year.

Apricots from the root cellar, super ready to plant.

Time to pot up these seedlings. you can direct sow into trays and pots, or info a garden bed but I like to use community pots to get things started. saves on greenhouse space, easy to keep watered.

A few seedlings coming up. i have quite a few of these to prick out into plug trays or pots. should add them to our seed shop, proof that they do germinate

Western sandcherry from some tasty ones I found last summer. about one month old. we're growing these out to plant in the landscape and also for dwarfing apricot rootstocks.

Few seedlings growing in the greenhouse. so far 45 trays each one something different. no idea if it's too much or not enough ;)

Thinking about giving these old plug trays a go this year. I gave up on them in 2015-16 after winter kill took out 90% of the confiers, I had thousands healthy in the fall, covered with snow and just stone dead in the spring. I'm fine it's ok, some of those pine trees are 6 ft tall around my yard now. but this year I have some cold storage for the winter, and suspect I could surely keep plugs alive. still trying to understand how to use them, these can ship all summer right? probably only suitable for bushes or small perennials or trees with a slower growing root system? imagining an oak or willow would get root bound fast.. or am I wrong?

First set loaded, thinking I'll just plant some of everything in these for variety. they're a 50 cell 200ml/cc 2x5" plug tray.

Sometimes you forget to plant a hundred apple trees. ask anyone and you should not transplant a tree that's flush with new growth and on a hot day.. so that's that I did this morning. Bare root and zip tied in bundles, heeled in to some pots they were dormant 2-3 weeks ago. I expect some wilt and shock and maybe they'll stop growing for a month, but hopefully they won't defoliate. Like most of my transplanted trees this year, when you have hundreds they're ok with high density and I plant them in small groups in each hole, like a buddy system. some rain and clouds in the forecast. these need to size up a bit for next year's rootstocks. I have a weird problem where last year several beds of Siberian crabapple barely grew, and now they're taking off and I have way more than I need. these are ideal full sized rootstocks for zone 3/2 apples. #plantingtrees

Bench grafts right before they went in the ground. the first half are on b118 from our new stoolbed, second half are root grafts on M. baccata .. I have a variety of rootstocks and types of grafts this year so it will be interesting to compare how well they grow. #grafting

Seedlings (in order) Boxelder, Silver Buffalo Berry, Pear, Mountain Ash

Planting spruce around our aspen forest. I like to use the dibble for this it's quick and the hole fits a decent root mass. planted on the north side of a stump covered with old bark to keep it sheltered #treeplanting

Nursery area this spring, about to build some seedbeds for more stratified tree seeds

Planting spruce today. one thing I've learned when planting around a wood lot is to use stakes, because you need to find them through the first year to water them. by June without stakes they're very hard to find. another good tip is to plant on the north side of a log or stump and pile around bark for best survival. #silviculture #treeplanting

One corner of our nursery, raised beds full of small trees and bushes #backyardnursery #garden

Today the ground was finally thawed enough to dig up our heeled in trees from the fall, grown in our raised beds. Last year was a good start, a few hundred seedling rootstocks about to get grafted and some assorted trees we'll plant out around our property. All the cool stuff is coming up this fall. #treenursery #rootstock

Siberian crabapples at 4 weeks under led lights #appletree #malusbaccata #rootstock

Two weeks after germination Malus baccata var mandsuria #appletree #seedling

Filling a new nursery bed with #compost and #biochar .. there's a gradient in the soil from pure garden soil with a substantial mineral content to pure aged compost in the top inches. As time goes by we amend by adding compost only to the top layer. #fruittreenursery #fruittrees #backyardnursery

Malus Baccata #rootstock planted out under shade cloth in a raised bed of #compost, garden soil, #biochar. These guys are all experimental batches grown in different conditions in our winter garden. The range from 6 months to 5 weeks old. . #fruittreenursery #fruittrees #backyardnursery

Malus Baccata rootstocks at 18 weeks indoors. Our winter garden proved a success this year with various seed sources to kick off the outdoor nursery with some larger seedlings. #appletrees #rootstock #malus

Haskaps, seedling from aurora. here the seed was stratified feb through march and then planted in the greenhouse in early april. just about ready to divide up into their own pots. The seedlings won't be exactly the same a aurora, which is a large fruiting very upright bush, but similar and they have the advantage that they'll all be able to cross pollinate.

Jacob's ladder seedlings. this is the first year I've grown them, some will go into a bed or large pots where we can collect seed in the fall. this is sort of the plan with all the wild flowers, a project in progress to be fully self sufficient with as many of our seed lots as we can

Sea buckthorn seedlings, from seed I collected in the fall from a bush that was nearly thornless. I was kind of a treat just stripping the fruit off the small branches without finding the usual spines tipping every small branch. Usually when you collect sea buckthorn, it's just easier to prune some branches. The seedlings will have been pollinate by a male plant somewhere nearby so the thornless trait will likely show up in some but not all of the seedlings. Maybe I should take some cuttings..

Wild tobacco, a smaller leaved plant that matures at just a couple ft tall. last year I grew them out in small pots, they seem to do well in containers. here they're ready to divide up into transplants, maybe a little overdue - when plants are crowded and get leggy a good approach after transplanting is to use small pots or a plug trays and put it right into full shade for a few days to reduce the stress and let them recover before going into the sun. more or less time depending on the weather.

Northline saskatoon seedlings. stratified for three months, jan through march and planted in the greenhouse early april. they're small tree seeds so giving them a month or two in pots like this to size up before transplanting can work well. while these aren't exactly the large fruiting northline cultivar, they're going to be very similar - and saskatoons are tricky to propagate from cuttings so I would recommend growing them from seed.

Wild grapes, cold stratified from nov through march so about five months in the fridge in some damp vermiculite, planted in april. they're a good size to transplant now, I usually put 2-3 to a cell in our plug trays but singles are also ok. funny story I divided up any earlier batch in june and we actually got frost mid june here in southern MB and it took out most of those outside small tender grape seedlings. So my advice when you grow these is to make sure they have some frost protection the first spring. all grapes seem to see about five months of cold conditioning for the seeds to germinate, so if you're going to grow them from seed start them early in the fall. you can also plant outside into pots, and then generally the seedlings will have more frost tolerance than greenhouse transplants.

Apples fruiting on wild saskatoon rootstock. a selection of apples grafted about shoulder high onto established saskatoon/ serviceberry, up high above the deer browse line. at three years old, showing good graft compatibility and precocity. is this supposed to be possible? well.. good question. I seem to have stumbled across something that works, similar to how quince is a good rootstock for pear.

Elderberry fruit, will be red or black by the fall. this is a seedling species unknown, but I'm watching out for selections of any black fruiting ones growing well in Manitoba. here we have amerian black elderberry (S. canadensis) - the usual suspects with a dozen cultivars, some of which may be zone 3 hardy in the right context. To date, I haven't got any to survive above the snow but I'm in an exposed low laying area with light soil. and then there's the reclusive rocky mountain elderberry (S. racemesa var melanocarpa) - a black "red" elderberry - would like to find some of that growing it may be our hardiest option

Theissen saskatoon seedlings. a large fruiting cultivar, and a larger tree than the wild ones. while the seedlings aren't exactly the same as the cultivar, they should be very similar. saskatoon/serviceberry is notoriously difficult to propagate clonally, you basically need to use tissue culture, or some crazy etiolation - like grow it in a pot in the dark for a few weeks then take cuttings. seedlings are easier.

A few z grafts, you can see how on the larger rootstock it helps heal over the cut faster than a graft just off to one size. the large one is an unnamed plug directly onto chokecherry, and the small ones are american wild plum interstems between chokecherry and black ice plum - a sandcherry hybrid I'm trying to root this summer, basically it's a cherry plum - and the other has alenja on top, which survived -40 so another interesting imported plum to grow,

Evans cherry seedlings. at the orchard where I collected these, there was a little variation between the evans trees, so it's possible they were seedlings, if that's true then I would expect these to have comparable large cherries. there's all sorts of interesting breeding history in the sour cherries we can grow on the prairies, evans was a chance seedling discovered, it grows into a small tree, while the bush cherries from u of sask have a long breeding history with complex hybridization, I think starting with prunus fruiticosa, a small bushy cherry.

Mustang cherry plum, just about ripe I think the color would go a little more burgundy. this is usually just a rootstock, though the idea of growing out the seeds to evaluate for their rootstock potential has me interested.

Potting up a plum tree on a mustang rootstock. it just worked out for our growing space and late spring grafting that this year all the grafted plums are in pots. what's interesting is the fibrous root system of a cherry plum hybrid stock seems to grow well in a small pot, you can see the healthy white root hairs, no circling roots, not too densely filled, in my experience just the right time to pot up. if I tried this this apple the thicker roots would be all tangled. I'm new enough to nursery work that several methods are getting experimented with for just about everything, but one thing I've consistently found is methods that work for large growers aren't the only way that works, and small craft scale growers may benefit from these slightly more intensive and time consuming methods, you almost just have to try it and judge the results to know.

Northern white cedar. I've been germinating conifers in pots like this, and then transplanting into plug trays. it saves on greenhouse space and time in the spring, and lets you carefully water and take care of the seed through the critical germination period. You can direct sow into a garden or nursery bed, and keep them there for at least a year before planting out in a yard or tree line, I tend to grow them for two or three years to get up to size. I've also rooted cedar from cuttings, it take some practice and I had low percentages but if you can setup the right conditions it's possible. Growing them from seed is much easier.

Debbie's gold apricot on it's own roots. manchurian apricot has some rooting potential, maybe also for rootstock. does anyone stoolbed them? seeds are easier for sure but always in short supply #apricot #propagation

Hardwood sawdust for stoolbeds. my wood shop has this pile from the dust collectors, aged hardwood a mix of walnut, cedar, oak and all kinds of exotics. at the bottom it's ten years old, but the high eastern res cedar content keeps it from completely composting. In the next video I'm topping up the new ussurian pear stoolbed, cut to the ground this spring, hoping we get rooted stocks this fall, nearby there are a couple other stoolbeds with siberian crabapple #stoolbed #stoolbeds #propagation #rootstocks

Checking on field planted apples, this area had saturated soil this spring. so I made a hole near each one to keep an eye on it and provide some local drainage. still saturated 12" down. if it stays water logged through summer the plan is to dig more to create a mound and transplant into it. Ok and mulch and caging, this is a work in progress. I stopped at 25 trees because of the soil, not sure how siberian crabapple rootstocks will like it. Green ash, boxelder, sandbar willow, silver buffaloberry all around the site are fine with the wet clay.

Help wanted to ID this plum rootstock, cuttings from root suckers. It's zone 3 hardy, few options right? Americana, sand cherry, mustang are the 3 I know of. Looks the most like americana, suckers like it.. but it roots super easily which seems different. Myrobalan isn't hardy here to -40, but maybe it is? Suggestions welcome, plant from a garden center no idea what nursery, tree is 4 yrs old with no winter kill.

Hilled our stool bed of b118 with cedar sawdust today. Seems about the right time of year. Why cedar? My woodworking shop makes a tone of it, there's a mix of other hardwoods but the whole pile just smells like the cedar. This pile is aged a couple years and shows no sign of breaking down. Wondering how it will affect rooting. #stoolbed #appletrees #propagation

Planting out a bed of mustang cherry rootstocks. These should be large enough to bud in July. Our reserves of scion wood for many cultivars have been grafted out around the orchard, one reason to have an orchard next to the nursery - a ready supply of scion wood. This is one immediate benefit of our wild rootstock experiment, even if there is delayed graft compatibility in a few years for some cultivars, this summer we're successfully growing scion wood. #rootstock #cherryplum #mustangcherry #growingtrees #treenursery

Mustang cherries for budding this fall. While around the orchard I like to experiment with rootstocks, the plum trees we'll want to sell will be grafted on these. It's a complex Prunus hybrid developed by a local nursery that has good compatibility with many prunus species and is fully cold hardy to zone 3. Our next choice after these would be P. americana or P. nigra I think, and I want to try those but it's surprisingly difficult to get seeds. Feeling like a proper nursery when wholesale trees arrive on a palette.. #mustangcherry #rootstock

Siberian crabapple rootstock in one of our raised beds. We had a batch of seed that was sown late like July last year, so they're just taking off now. This bed has a high density, they'll grow but would get larger we we had them spaced.

Malus baccata for rootstocks

Small white spruce sheltered by bark and budding out. Where you won't be back to water in the bush, hide them on the north side of a log or stump to protect from desiccation #silvicultura #whitespruce

Ussurian pear started in large plug trays. They can be a bit tricky to grow in trays or beds so I've had better luck in the first year as a plug. some of these are large enough to graft next spring, though most I think should grow another year in the ground. i'm growing 20:1 apples just because of rootstock availability in Canada, for zone 3 pears. basically they need to be seedlings, and basically you need to grow them yourself. I'm going to try some varied trays and small beds next spring as well, since stooling ussurian didn't produce results . some ohxf87 is possible though it's more of a zone 4 stock.

Amur grape seedlings. plugs, seed started this spring. most of the mass is in the roots, we did a few kinds of grape seedlings this year and they worked out, you get a small starter plant with a few buds on top that's ready to take off in the second year. I would plant these with plenty of mulch. amur grape , vitus amurensis is a wild grape that's very cold hardy. the more common species around here is riparia, the riverbank grape.

Siberian crabapple, with some random percentage of hybridization, fruit will be different sizes. the larger fruiting tree is just about completely scab resistant, collected more of those. this stand of 4 trees were planted in 2004, and I use the seed for rootstocks.

Plugs. japanese walnut and nanking cherry. for a first year seedlings they trees seem to do well. Most of my stock is in small pots, these were just to see how they compare.

Apple stoolbed b118 harvest, 3rd year. made about 50 rootstocks 1/2" caliper and decent rooting #stoolbed

Roots like carrots on these 2 yr old siberian crabapples. I had make 6-8 different beds this fall, 1-2 yrs old some raised some in ground, some local seed. lots of material for grafting in the spring, probably much more than I need but I really enjoy grafting. #rootstocks

This small bed of boxelder was ready to lift, high density kept them small, but it was also the first year for this nursery bed and we're continuing to make them deeper by adding composted manure and wood chips. Thinking they should be transplanted into a larger bed in rows to size up next year. This might be our approach with many tree seeds, first year in a small starter bed then spread out and heavily mulched in a large in ground bed for the second year. The are benefits to the small bed in the first season, still sorting this process out and trying variations.

Here's our larger Siberian crab apple rootstocks for spring grafting. these were direct seeded last year. #rootstock

New nursery beds were my fall project. Fifteen no till beds 3' x 20' ready for seeds. By next year these should be full of small trees. #backyardnursery #notill #notillgardening #organicgardening

Winter garden update, white nanking seedlings taking off after a week, photo 2 is western sandcherry another fast growing seedling, crandall currant, highbush cranberry, rhubarb .. it's a mix of what germinated early in stratification, we'll hold them under lights until april then move to the greenhouse

Talking about chokecherry as a rootstock. couple of 2 min videos, probably too long for instagram. If I could remember to hold the phone sideways stuff might make it's way to youtube.

Western sandcherry, prunus besseyi. hansen bush cherries. such a cool plant, the fruit is super tasty (unlike the related eastern sandcherry prunus pumila), it's one of the parents of most cherry plums and the black nanking, and it's a super cold hardy rootstock. I'll be grafting apricots and other prunus onto it in the spring, and generally growing many of them for no other reason than to plant around our nursery, they should do well in our sandy soil #sandcherry

Started the winter garden. apple seeds direct into 2.5" pots to start Siberian crabapple rootstocks. with this head start they'll be up to size for grafting by the end of the season #indoorgarden

Pine seedlings just about a week after germination, they still have their little seed hats on. This is one of half a dozen species we're growing for our own silviculture, a long term project to add diversity into our 52 acre aspen forest. #silviculture #pinetrees #pineseedlings #scottspine #seedlings #treeseedlings

Siberian crabapple with purple genetics. One of the trees we harvested seed from in the fall had stunning purple leaves, and about 50% of the seedlings carried that trait. #appletrees #appletreenursery #siberiancrabapple #applerootstock #appletree #crabapples #treenursery