approach grafting

[mella l]

While reading today about the Circus Trees of Santa Cruz CA, http://www.arborsmith.com/treecircus.html and their arborist, Axel Erlandson, a Swedish immigrant, I started looking into approach grafting.

Found this site and some sites in Puerto Rico where lychee are done this way. Or hey you could do other things, like circus animals.

Thought I'd share this with those who are interested in this grafting approach, used for lychee, citrus, ficus, sycamore, you name it.

http://www.pooktre.com/ for trees that look like people!

http://www.arborsmith.com/ for the world tour

Even furniture and buildings can be done.


mella l


Edited by - mella l on 06/24/2007 11:47:58

[Mitzi M]

These are brilliant! Thanks Mella! Wouldn't it be cool to have a tree bed for those clear starry nights? Thanks for these links!

Mitzi

Edited by - mitzi m on 06/24/2007 12:29:24

[Carolann R]

Okay so now I HAVE seen everything! Never seen this kinda thing before (aside from moving animal hedges in "The Stand" LOL!).

Carrie

"All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it." Bob Newhart

[emorata]

thanks for posting this mella, i've always been interested in seeing these especially after going to bonfonte gardens in gilroy....pretty amazing stuff.

i'm sure this can be done with alot of the scrubby tree's found in most parcels in puna....and probably alot faster to do the grafting since things grow very quickly here.....i would be interested in checking out what you were talking about with fruit plants that were grafted in puerto ricko....have you seen a website for this?

noel

[mella l]

Glad you all found this fun! Did you see the fica tree house? I believe it is half way down on the world tour site, it was just unbelievable. I also like the trees into chairs, shown in dormant stage, but when in full leaf would have it's own umbrella shade! LOL I think the people ones are cool too.

Noel, the grafting technique "approach grafting" was used in puerto rico to graft different fruits together into one root stock. If you google approach grafting puerto rico you will see the lychee and citrus grafting. Here is one site that shows that experimentation;

http://www.quisqualis.com/01Ramb.html


mella l

[sansei]

mella
Please don't take this as criticism, but as a jumping off point for more exploration of what can be done with plants. According to WIKI, grafting is a technique for propagating plants where the tissues of one plant are encouraged to fuse with those of another. Another interesting point about grafting is that it is usually done with plants of the same family but sometimes grafts are purposely done with partially compatible plants as with grafted dwarf fruit trees. The incompatibility causes the fruit tree to dwarf like a bonsai in a small pot.

The term pleaching is used to describe the technique of weaving the branches of a single tree together to form structures or sculptures. Pleaching duplicates what happens in nature when two branches rub together in the wind until the cambium layers are exposed and they fuse together.

The term espalier is used to describe the technique training branches to grow in a single plane to form living hedges or grow along a wall. I have personally espaliered apple and can tell you it is easy to do. Espalier allows growing fruit trees in very small yards. Sometimes all three techniques are combined as in the sites you found.

Try Googling pleach and espalier for more sites - - Happy hunting.

[mella l]

Hahahaha, I read "Much Ado about Nothing", but totally missed the pleaching part!!

Thanks for the information, it is all very interesting to me. I do have an espalier Gala apple here that I keep in shape.

I would just be so pleased to grow a large topiary garden! All in good time!



mella l