Grafting plants

Grafting is a process in which a part of one plant is surgically attached to a part of another plant – it all sounds a bit high tech, but the Romans were past masters of grafting and it has been a part of the gardener’s armoury for centuries. The two parts grow together to form a single "grafted" plant. The part which will eventually grow to form the top of the plant, producing stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit, is known as the scion and the lower portion of the graft, which will produce the root system, is known as the rootstock. So why do it?

Grafted plants are usually more uniform in their growth habit, flower colour, flowering season, fruit size, shape, and quality, etc., than seed-grown plants. If you planted seeds from a 'Golden Delicious' apple, the resulting trees would produce fruit of varying types but none of them would bear 'Golden Delicious' fruit. Grafted trees, using scions cut from a 'Golden Delicious' tree, would all produce typical, 'Golden Delicious' apples.

Grafts tend to flower or bear fruit much sooner than plants grown from seeds. In the case of some fruit tree species, you can save several years of waiting time, through grafting.

Grafting a plant allows you to select a root system adapted to your climate and soil, or resistant to local pests and diseases.

Some rootstocks produce extreme vigour in the scion - valuable in a plant prone to snapping or disease. Others may cause the scion to be dwarfed so we can have small trees in our small gardens

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