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How to Graft a Weeping Cherry Tree
How to Graft a Weeping Cherry Tree. Each spring, the weeping cherry tree produces a spectacular cascade of blossoms.What some people don't realize is that the weeping effect, which is the main characteristic of this tree, did not come naturally. Instead it was created by effectively reassembling the tree through a process of grafting or joining...
Each spring, the weeping cherry tree produces a spectacular cascade of blossoms.
What some people don't realize is that the weeping effect, which is the main characteristic of this tree, did not come naturally. Instead it was created by effectively reassembling the tree through a process of grafting or joining branches to the top few inches of the trunk of a healthy growing tree.
Grafting is a form of surgery which must be done with precision in order to succeed. The goal is to join a severed rootstalk with a portion of a healthy branch known, for grafting purposes, as a scion. This must be done in a way that brings the cambiums of each--the layer of cells just under the bark-- into contact so that they may fuse and continue to grow as a single plant.
Things You'll Need
Cherry tree at least 5 feet tall
Saw
Grafting tool
Sliding blade or scissor type pruning shears
Chalk
Knife
Chisel or small wedge
Paraffin film or grafting wax
Grafting Technique for the Weeping Cherry
Saw straight through the trunk of a healthy cherry sapling at a height between 3 and 5 feet. The cut trunk will serve as the rootstock or base of your weeping cherry. Make the cut smooth and perpendicular to the ground. Avoid cutting in an area where there are knots and try to disturb the bark as little as possible.
Use a standard grafting tool, available through nurseries and nursery supply companies, to make a downward slit about 2 inches deep through the top of the rootstalk.
Create a scion to be grafted to the truck by first selecting a one year old branch about 1/4 inches in diameter. The branch does not need to come from the same tree you have cut but can be any healthy one-year-old growth from another weeping cherry.
Using a sharp knife or pruning shears, make a sloping cut about 1/4 inch above the uppermost bud on the branch.
Count down from the top bud two more buds so your scion will have a total of three buds. Cut the scion about 2 inches below the lowest bud.
Using a very sharp knife, shave the bottom of the scion into a two sided wedge starting just below the lower bud. The wedge should be blunt at the end, not sharply pointed.
Use a chisel or small wedge to open the crack in the rootstock that you made with your grafting tool. Insert the wedged end of the scion into the cleft in the rootstock near the outer edge so that the bark remaining on the side of the scion wedge lines up as nearly as possible with the bark on the rootstalk.
Prepare a second scion using the same method and insert it into the other side of the cleft.
Protect the graft by wrapping tightly with paraffin film or by covering the cuts with grafting wax available at nursery supply stores.
Tips & Warnings
When you begin to prepare your scions, mark the top end with chalk to help you remember which end is up. A scion inserted into the cleft upside-down will not grow.
As your weeping cherry tree grows, branches produced by the original rootstalk below the area of the graft must be pruned in order for the tree to maintain its cascading form.
Weeping cherries are difficult to grow in northern hardiness zones below zone 4.
