I have begun topworking an ancient pear tree with a 2 ft thick trunk. The dead wood, unwanted big limbs, and too-thick-to-graft-on branches were chainsawed off a couple months ago, leaving many 3/8" to 1" thick branches that I started to graft on this week.Since the major haircut, the tree has been sending out about 40 new green shoots. I clipped off all the shoots except about a dozen that are great candidates for development into future fruit-bearing branches. These 3 to 4 ft long shoots already have white,hard core wood, but the thin, green, flexible, moist bark is far away from becoming the thicker, tan or gray bark that I usually do bark and cleft grafts on. I imagine that the flexible bark would be easy enough to do T-buds on, but I prefer scions on this project. Rather than waiting till next March to graft the dozen greenbacks, I am interested to try this year.Does anyone out there do cleft grafts on the green-barked suckers after the core wood becomes hard? ?

I have the same concern as the original poster. The abnormal sprouts on my young navel orange (Lane Late Navel, about 3.5 feet tall) have THORNS on them. The abnormal sprouts are not from the trunk or below the graft but are from other "normal" branches. They grow very fast, have wider spacing between leaves, and the stem has a distinctly flattened cross section (and they have thorns). What causes these abnormal sprouts? Can I prevent them? Should I remove them (I don't like the thorns and I wonder about eventual fruit quality)?

David, You'd be best to put up a small camping tent up against the north side of a structure and place your grafts inside. This will provide the constant humidity necessary for any type of graft to not dry out. I don't think you need parafilm tape if you have humidity for summer grafting. It wouldn't hurt but it's not necessary. Now rhododendrons are not something I've read up on. Grafting is grafting to me though and those tips are what I would do for anything I'm grafting this time of the year, or, especially at the end of July into August. The middle of August is optimum time to summer graft because that's when the roots are most active (at any given time of the year.) Less energy into producing shoots in spring while active rooting is occurring is the opposite of August. Some people graft in November also after plants have fully gone dormant and while roots are active, but, you'd need a pretty warm climate or greenhouse at that time. The reason for less water in media is to decrease bleeding at the union. When plants are watered they want to grow. If you starve a plant of water they will slow down. During healing, when there is an active flow of sap, it will push the union apart, literally. Recently I was on the phone with a friend asking for cuttings of Rhododendron to do later in the year and he told me that now is the optimum time. I replied that Dirr says otherwise and he said, 'Dirr doesn't know it all.' So, I'm going to assume you know more about Rhododendron propagation that I. As for grafting though, I honestly believe it's the wrong time of the year, but I cannot tell you if I'm incorrect. Mid-August for two weeks, until Sept 1st is optimum summer grafting time. I'll say one last thing. This is T-budding time and the window is closing. It's also June Greenwood Grafting. They're both basically the same. A bud is sliced out of a stick of wood for T-budding and inserted under the bark of another. In Greenwood grafting, rigid new growth is where the bud is cut out to be inserted under the bark. I honestly cannot compare these bud grafts with what you're doing; using a stick of wood vs. a bud. I do know however that a full scion is not grafted this time of the year on anything I know of. Dax

KC in my experience oranges take longer to bloom and fruit, I have a Valencia Orange that did nothing but grow for 8 years and then finally bloomed on the 9th season. My grapefruit took about 6 years to fruit. Mind you these are grafted trees I'm talking about. It is possible for commercial nurseries to sell rooted cuttings but in California it is highly unlikely because grafted trees are easily obtainable and not that expensive. You say that your tree has been in ground 4 years, by now your graft line should be difficult to distinguish if it was a good graft and a compatible rootstock was used. The whole point of grafting is to get the trunks to blend so that it's nearly indistinguishable between scion and rootstock transition. Patience is your best friend when it comes to growing citrus and I've found that fertilizing at the right times of the year is key to getting your trees to bloom and hold fruit. On another note, Meyers are prolific bloomers but will self thin fairly well so I'd leave your flowers alone on the tree until they're marble size and then thin out if you think it's holding too much fruit. Evan