You could try air layering but odds are her tree is a grafted one. I'm not sure with apples, but with citrus the benefits of the graft are usually dissease resistance and greater growth.

As long as you don't mind spending the money you can always buy rootstocks online.

The easiest way is to plant some rootstocks. Raintree has a good selection. Then during late spring or summer T bud your grandmother's scions onto the rootstock.

You might want to prune back a few limbs on her trees in late winter to force some rapid growth in spring. As soon as that new growth matures you can do the T buds. This way there is no need for long term storage of scions. You cut and bud asap. T budding apples is pretty easy. With decent technique 80-90% takes are common.

The nice thing about the rootstocks is that you can also make changes to the size by selecting semi or full dwarf as well.

You may also be able to find a nursery professional somewhere willing to do custom grafts from your scion wood -- the time to do that is mid to late winter, so check around.

But it's actually pretty easy to do it yourself, and the rootstocks are relatively cheap, like $3-$4 each. Just do a simple "cleft" graft, and it should work - when I tried it last year, I had success, which blew my mind. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

We do thousands of custom grafts a year - I'd be happy to graft the tree for you if you'd pay for shipping and rootstock. We buy the rootstock in massive shipments so its usually about $1 to $1.50 each. This year we are ordering in M111 but we do have a small amount of M7 avaiable. The M111 will produce a tree about 15 to 18 foot tall while the M7 would be more like 12 to 15 foot tall. The benchgrafts would be shipped for about $10 - so if you wanted 4 trees $16 should do it worst case. We would need several cuttings from last years growth - preferably about pencil size. My orchard phone is 9138936050 - wagonwheelorchard - Thanks, Rick

I would go with Rick. Help him and yourself out as much as you can. 1 year old wood , pencil size, 8" long , with 4 to 6 good buds. Read about root stock and check the soil where you will plant.(some root stock will grow with wet feet , others not). If you only want 1 tree plant 4 close together and let them show you who wants to be your tree. next bring family, apples usually do not breed alone. I cut a nasty tasting crab out of my orchard and the trees surrounding it dropped production by 50%. He must have been the man. LOL The person who planted my orchard 100 years ago must have known a lot more than I do.

Thank you for all the advice everyone. I still have a ton of questions, but this gives me a good start. Thanks for the offer, Rick, I'll think on it.

I only have room in my yard for about two apple trees. But, what if I decide I only want one? Is that possible, or do I have to have two so they can cross-pollinate?

Also, the soil in my area is very, VERY rocky. Should that affect which rootstock I decide to buy?

Thanks!

Ann:

Rocks by themselves are no concern. But if that indicates a droughty soil then you either need a more vigorous rootstock or irrigation that will compensate.

You can bud or graft several varieties on one tree. Or just go with one variety and rely on neighborhood trees for pollination. The later usually works in town.

A good rootstock for a moderate size tree or poor dry soil would be MM 111 or Geneva 30. Buy a couple of those from Raintree and bud on your grandmothers scions. It's really pretty easy.

You could also go several small trees in the same area as one big tree. Budagosky 9 or EMLA 26 make good smaller trees.