Instructions in gardening for ladies

by Mrs. Loudon

Budding, though sometimes used for apples and pears, when the spring grafts have failed, is most commonly applied to roses: it is, however, occasionally used for inserting eyes in the tubers of the dahlia. It sometimes happens that a large portion of a dahlia-root is found to be entirely devoid of buds, or as the gardeners call them, eyes; and when this is the case, in whatever soil the root may be planted, it will never send up a stem. Other dahlia tubers, on the contrary, may be found full of buds; and when this is the case, one of them is scooped out, and a corresponding hole being made in the barren tuber to receive it, the bud is fitted in, and the point of junction covered with grafting wax. The tuber must then be planted in a pot with the budded part above the soil; and the pot plunged into a hot-bed till the bud begins to push, when the tuber may be planted out into the open ground.

What is called flute-grafting, is in fact, a kind of budding; as it consists in taking a ring of bark, on which there is a bud, off a shoot; and then supplying its place with a ring of bark, with a bud attached, from another tree: placing the suppositious bud as nearly as possible in the position of the true bud. Sometimes, however, this is not thought necessary; and the ring of bark is taken from any part of the stock; though it is always replaced by a ring of bark containing a bud from the scion. There are many other kinds of budding, but as the principles are the same in all, it is not necessary to detail them here. The blade of the budding knife should curve outwards, to lessen the danger of wounding the wood when making the incisions.

The principal points to be attended to in budding, are; to choose a fresh healthy bud; to separate the bark to which it is attached without wounding it, quite cleanly from the wood; to make a clear incision through the bark of the stock, and to raise it without wounding it from the wood; to press the bark containing the bud, closely to the wood of the stock so that no air can remain between them; and to perform the operation in moist weather, not earlier than the last week in July, nor later than the first week in September. Of these points the most important are the joining closely the bark of the bud to the wood of the stock, and the performing the operation in moist, or at least in cloudy weather; and if these are attended to there is little doubt of success. When the young shoot begins to grow, it is usual to shorten the branches of the stock, so as to throw the whole vigour of the tree into the bud. It is singular to observe that even when the operation is most successful, no intimate union takes place between the bud and the stock: they grow firmly together, but they do not incorporate, and the point of union may always be distinctly traced.

It must always be remembered that a plant can only be budded on another plant of the same nature as itself; thus a peach may be budded on a plum, as they are both stone fruits, and both belong to the same section of the natural order Rosaceæ; but a peach can neither be budded on a walnut, which belongs to another natural order, nor even on an apple or a pear, both of which, though belonging to the order Rosaceæ, are kerneled fruits, and are included in another section.

Grafting differs from budding in its being the transfer of a shoot with several buds on it, from one tree to another, instead of only a single bud; and as budding has been compared to sowing seeds, so has grafting to making cuttings. The art of grafting consists in bringing two portions of growing shoots together, so that the liber, or soft wood of two may unite and grow together; and the same general principles apply to it as to budding. There are above fifty modes of grafting described in books, but only three or four are in common use.

In all kinds of grafting the shoot to be transferred is called the scion, and the tree that is to receive it is called the stock; and it is always desirable, not only that the kinds to be united should be of the same genus, or at least of the same natural family, but that they should agree as closely as possible in their time of leafing, in the duration of their leaves, and in their habits of growth. This is conformable to common sense; as it is quite obvious that unless the root send up a supply of sap at the time the leaves want it, and only then, the graft must suffer either from famine or repletion. For this reason, a deciduous plant cannot be grafted on an evergreen, and the reverse. The necessity of a conformity in the habit of growth, is strikingly displayed in Mr. Loudon’s Arboretum Britannicum, in a flowering ash grafted on a common ash; by which it is shown, that an architectural column with its plinth and capital may be formed in a living tree, where there is a decided difference in the growth of the stock and the scion.

These examples show that no intimate union takes place between the scion and the stock; and the fact is, that though they grow together and draw their nourishment from the same root, they are in every other respect perfectly distinct. The stock will bear its own leaves, flowers, and fruit, on the part below the graft; while the scion is bearing its leaves, flowers, and fruit which are widely different, on the part above the graft. Nay, five or six grafts of different species on the same tree, will each bear a different kind of fruit at the same time. This want of amalgamation between the scion and the stock is particularly visible in cases of severe frost, when the former is more tender than the latter; as the graft is frequently killed without the stock being injured. It is also necessary when grafted trees are for any reason cut down, to leave a portion above the graft for the new shoots to spring from; as otherwise the proprietor will find his trees changed as if by magic, and instead of choice kinds only the common sorts left. A rather droll instance of this happened some years ago, in the neighbourhood of London; an ignorant gardener having a conservatory full of very choice Camellias, and wishing to reduce the plants to a more compact shape, cut them down for that purpose; when in due time he found, to his great confusion and dismay, that the choice Camellias had all vanished, and that he had nothing left but a number of plants of the common single red on which they had been grafted.

The proper season for grafting is in spring, generally in March and April; in order that the union between the scion and the stock may be effected when the sap is in full vigour. At this season a stock is chosen of nearly the same diameter as the scion, whether that stock be a young tree, or merely a branch; and they are both cut so as to fit each other. One piece is then fitted on the other as exactly as possible; and if practicable, it is contrived that the different parts, such as the bark, soft wood, and hard wood of the one, may rest on the corresponding parts of the other; and on the exactness with which this is done, the neatness of appearance in the graft depends. It is not, however, essential to the success of the operation that all the parts of the scion should fit exactly on the corresponding parts of the stock, or even that the two trees should be of the same diameter, for if the bark and the soft wood correspond in any one point so as to unite, it is sufficient to make the graft take. As soon as the scion and the stock are properly fitted to each other, the parts are neatly bound together with a strand of bast mat steeped in water to make it flexible; and the bast is covered with a composition called grafting clay, which is put on to keep the absorbent vessels of the wounded parts moist, and capable of the alternate contractions and dilations which will be necessary during the passage of the ascending and returning sap between the stock and the graft. These directions apply alike to all kinds of grafting; and the difference between the sorts refers principally to the manner in which the corresponding parts are cut to fit each other.

Whip or Tongue Grafting is where both the stock and the scion are cut in a slanting direction so as to fit each other, and a little slit is made in the stock into which a tongue or projecting part cut in the scion fits. The head of the scion is then cut off in a slanting direction, slanting upwards from the part cut to receive the scion, and the two are bound closely together with a strand of bast mat, or wrapped in moss, and then covered with grafting clay. The part left on the stock in a slanting direction above the graft withers, and is cut off when the graft has taken. This is the kind of grafting generally practised in nurseries, and it is the most useful, as it does not require the scion and the stock to be of the same size.