Your Honour, not only is this Malus domestica crooked - to the extent that its degree of slouch interferes with the plot directly behind it but it is also planted in the wrong place. That area becomes so parched in the summer heat that the inevitable summer drop takes its toll. Planted in 2012 (not by me), and for the past five years, it has done nothing but dashed our hopes of getting a bumper crop.
Then, during the Christmas season of last year, a youtube video landed in my recommended list which strengthened my resolve to take remedial action on the tree. The video depicted a man undertaking maintenance work in his orchard: grafting using the cordless drill method, no less! This piqued my interest and I wanted to test the efficacy of this method myself. Two birds with one stone: 13th April (two months after remedial work) Three of the five anchor roots were cut and the tree was propped upright using wooden blocks as I didn't have any bricks. I will chop off the unsightly surface roots once the tree is re-established.
22nd April On the blue tape side are Granny Smith scions and Bramley on the other. Cordless drill grafts down the sides of the trunks. Bark grafts under the plastic wrapping. The Bramley bears fruit on the tips of the branches so I grafted just the tips to see if I could get fruit on a much shorter branch.
But, just in case... Some backups were made. The middle tree was done by a new member of our community garden. They didn't line up the scion and rootstock cambium layers properly in the cleft graft but we shall see how it fares. The outer ones were done by me: one side grafted, one cleft grafted.
