This installment pulls together posts on rootstocks, seedlings, and the early stages of growing trees from seed and cuttings. Everything here is grouped by season, and the captions explain the small decisions and observations that add up over time.
Questions and comments always welcome to doug@oaksummitnursery.ca.
Rootstocks And Seedlings
83 postsArticle build 2026-02-01 11:49
Spring
36 posts
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.
Potting up wild american hazelnuts. I kept them in some damp peat moss in a fridge all winter, and they've been just in a bin in the shade in the greenhouse for about a month. these guys will get some squirrel cage protection, the attached nuts will get excavated even after the seedlings are growing by ninja squirrels.
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
Seedling plums coming up. these are from pembina seeds. I've been keeping trays over top just add some shade and frost protection, greenhouse can get hot and cold. about to take them off.
Rhubarb about a month old from seed
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 ;)
Manchurian apricot softwood can root, here's westcot apricot on it's own roots from last fall. with enough stock material for cuttings in early june, this could be a way to propagate apricot rootstocks. maybe.
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.
Red leafed choke cherry seedling emerging
Royalty crabapple (red) next to our rootstocks
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
Malus baccata or Siberian crabapple seedlings getting potted up. sometimes is convenient to grow them in a community pot for a week or two and move them as they germinate. these will be some of next spring's rootstocks #seedlings #appleseeds
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
Siberian crabapple at 12 weeks ready to plant out. Most of these went into nursery beds to grow on for next year's rootstocks, and some were planted out around our orchard #appletree #appletrees #treeplanting
Ohio buckeye is an uncommon tree around here but seems fully winter hardy in zone 3. The big compound leaves are so cool. Trying a seedbed of them this summer. Sourcing tree seeds from a similar climate is very challenging, for example my buckeye seeds are from a thousand miles south of here. Will they survive -45? will need to keep them in the seedbed over winter vs heeling them into to find out, i need to see wood above the snow line survive to know.
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
Siberian crabapple seedlings at 8 weeks indoors. #malus #appleseedling
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
River birch seedlings at 5 weeks. these are a native species grown from seed collected in the fall. just trying them out inside to test germination, should have a whole bed of them come up this summer #riverbirch #indoorgarden
At one month these crab apple seedlings are ready to pot up. gown under led light in 200 cell trays the moved up to a large 50 cell for the next 8 weeks. most of these I just started direct in seedbeds but I like to have something growing inside, and if transplant shock can be avoided these rootstocks could maybe be large enough to bud this fall. #rootstock #crabapple #wintergarden
Siberian crabapples at 4 weeks under led lights #appletree #malusbaccata #rootstock
Two weeks after germination Malus baccata var mandsuria #appletree #seedling
Planting white spruce along a forest path today #silviculture #forest #treeplanting
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
Planting out some baby #mugopine these are 3 months old and about 2" tall. Transplanting from the grow room into a shady nursery bed full of #compost and #mulch. . #fruittreenursery #fruittrees #backyardnursery
It's all #woodchips and #compost at the nursery as we fill our raised beds by the greenhouse . #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
Summer
22 posts
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.
Wild plums, these ones are some mix of prunus nigra and americana. the leaves and fruit are in between. the seedlings will be good pollinators and rootstock.
Potting up seedlings, natives like silver buffaloberry (Shepherdia argentea), wolf willow (Elaeagnus commutata), a collection of currants and gooseberries. experimenting with container nursery, most of the plants are in pots and plug trays for this year.. last year I would have them all in the ground, but I think for some species a pot works better.. and I can ship them in the fall, basically can't do that with bare root here on the Canadian prairies, when the leaves drop and it snows the next day. #backyardnursery
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.
White mulberry, finally got to try them. also first hand got to see healthy Morus alba trees growing in southern Manitoba, not just in a sheltered micro climate, in an exposed location in an orchard. We're in zone 3 here on the prairies, and by most accounts these aren't hardy here in our -40 winters, but these trees are seedlings that prove otherwise.
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
Hawthorn grafted onto saskatoon. There's an interesting overlap of graft compatibility in the Rosacea family between several genuses, pear and quince, saskatoon and aronia, hawthorn and apple, and I have to assume more if you find the right interstems. there are some cool combinations to be tried and make the most inteteresting trees, these ones if the grafts endure will have purple berries and also 2" thorns with clusters of red fruit. #grafting
Rosa woodsii in full bloom. these spread with rhizomes and sometimes appear in my nursery beds so i've been potting up volunteers.
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.
Making a new stoolbed and topping up our b118 one started last year. the sawdust is aged hardwood with a high percentage aromatic cedar and walnut #stoolbed #propagation
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
Malus baccata, Siberian crab apple. These trees wake up and flower weeks before domestic apples. The pink and white flowers are the same species and show the genetic variations, the pink tree has more reddish stems and leaves and the apples are a deep red with red flesh. the white one has small late hanging apples. Both of these trees are planted in 2004 and have never had a single branch injured from the cold. Both will be harvested for seed again this fall for our rootstocks. #crabapple
Trying some succession in our nursery beds. we combined conifers in many of our beds with faster growing trees because they do well with some shade and need two years to grow before transplant. the River birch on the left will grow a couple of feet while the pine will be a few inches tall by the fall. The soil gets disturbed when we lift the birch but if it's done when the pine are dormant they seem to recover. A third layer of succession - we've started planting peas and beans in the beds with slow growing trees to improve the soil and add some shade. In addition we have some seeds that need two seasons in the ground like Hawthorne to germinate, these beds will be annuals this year. Last year we used shade cloth on our transplants, so far this year it hasn't been needed but the small conifers may need some shade in July/august. If the legumes get too big or when the crop is done we'll cut them to the ground and mulch the beds with them. working to get the most out of our beds.
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.
Our zone 3 backyard nursery with the forest orchard behind it. slowly expanding it in all directions. #backyardnursery #growingtrees
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
Fall
15 posts
Rootstock stoolbeds, one is b118 with the dark purple bark, and the other is ottawa3 . most of my rootstocks are seedlings, but stoolbeds are easy and convenient, they make a larger caliper shoot in the first year, the root system is smaller and more fibrous , you get the benefits of the clonal stock, some dwarfing, disease resistance, uniformity. you can start small, our ottawa3 bed started with 2 trees this spring. it made 4 good shoots, which I replanted, so now there's 6 stools and the 2 established ones should produce heavier next year. and so on. also doing this with ohxf87, though pear is more fickle.. with the upside that I was able to easily root some softwood, so if the grafts survive a zone 3 winter, might be lots of ohxf stocks in a couple years. btw ussurian does not root easily, I gave up on vegetative propagation with it, luckily we're flush with seeds. one day i'll have a renewable supply of hundred of pear stocks to graft, for this season it's fewer. if only i could buy them at some reasonable cost in canada.. americans have an under appreciated bounty of cheap rootstocks available to them that we do not up here.
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.
Parkland apple grafted to saskatoon, second year. a few cultivars have had stand out growth on this unconventional apple rootstock, might need to replicate to know if it's a one off or better compatibility. one way to look at long term health is the graft union, which looks pretty good. trial ongoing.
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.
White mulberry, morus alba tatarica. these are 2-3 years old from seed, most went in the toot cellar but a couple of patches like this will stress test the cold hardiness. it's a zone 3/4 borderline shrub, yet I saw a large one locally this summer and tried mulberry for the first time, proving mulberry can grow in manitoba and survive -40. hoping my seedlings are equally as tough. I'm out of seed now but can propagate these selections with softwood
Some frosty paper birch plugs getting.. unplugged
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
B118 stoolbed grew well in it's second year, 2-3 ft growth is as big as I want for a rootstock.
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
I made a new blog post as a follow up to our wild rootstock grafting experiment. Also our site has a new design, and I've filled up the sections with most of the trees we'll have available this winter. There's a link in our profile to our site or you can type in oaksummitnursery.ca
Apple rootstocks tucked in for next spring. these ones are about medium sized first year seedlings, anything smaller goes back in a bed for another year. Our two year old rootstocks hit about waist high, about as large as you want for bench grafting. Working on switching to stool beds this fall, then we should be able to grow larger more uniform rootstocks in one year. #rootstock #siberiancrabapple
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
10 posts
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.
Siberian peach, or chinese wild peach. Prunus davidiana, similar to Siberian C with a fruit that's a bit smaller but sweet + delicious, with a thicker fuzzier skin. zone 3/4, one of the most cold hardy peaches. growing these this summer to try as a rootstock, and to grow out in different forms both on its own roots and grafted. might get to have peaches in zone 3 with some winter cover.
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
Apple rootstocks in the fall, seedling Siberian crabapple. this time of year I'm collecting scion wood and planning to start bench grafting as soon as the ground thaws. #grafting #rootstock
Jack pine 12 weeks old. growing conifers requires patience, a one year old tree can be just a few inches tall. #jackpine #pineseedlings
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
Siberian crabapple (Malus Baccata) rootstocks from our winter garden getting potted up. #appleseedling #rootstocks