Or did you mean to say Gisela 5? That's what I just got from Raintree. I couldn't find another source of Gisela 5 on the internet anywhere, and I looked pretty hard. Raintree's got it.... but be warned, you're going to have to pay good money to get it.

Almost any apple can be grafted to your crabs. And, crabs make fine pollinators for them, assuming that they are blooming at the same time. There are a number of different approaches to grafting- you can get deeper into that next spring, when you will actually be able to start. Many people here do it and will be happy to share links to tutorials, videos, and so on, and to answer questions. Often you can get scions or bud sticks from friends or through people on this forum, or you can buy them. Scott Smith has a great list (which I don't have copied on this computer, or I'd give it to you now) and which should be available to you by searching this forum. Lots of good help here too about pruning. Hope this is a start. Good luck, Mark

Lind, I'm pretty sensitive to drainage because I've lost so many trees to it. A few years ago I got tired of pulling out dead trees, so I installed a field tile in most of the orchard area. It drains a lot of sub-surface water into a neighbor's pond. The tile stopped trees from dying but many trees still weren't thriving, so I've been slowly converting more trees to mounds. It's just what I have to do here. When I pull one out, I build a mound if I plan to go back w/ a peach. In my area, which may be different from MD, the soil stays wet from about Nov. thru June of the following year. It's the months of April, May, and June that the soggy soil does the trees in. In the past I've made my mounds out of regular native soil because it's free. This has worked very well for me. Below is an old photo I took this Spring. The tree directly to the left of my son was just starting it's second leaf/year. The tree in the mound on the right was also starting it's second leaf. However, the one on the right was not in a mound the first year and suffered stunting. So last fall, I dug it out, built a mound, and replanted. This picture was taken before either tree had put on any appreciable second leaf shoot growth. Both trees were the same size at purchase (bout 3/4"). My other trees in mounds perform similarly. Lately, I'm running out of places to dig, so I've been experimenting using wood chips as a base and putting soil on top as the growing medium. By the textbooks, this is a no no. But like I say, this is an experiment. This week I just got through building 10 more mounds for more trees. Rented a Dingo to build the mounds. Have 18 peach trees coming for next season, and have a mound for every one.

Anybody have any luck with this yet?